The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) could end up hitting its targets without providing the intended benefits as schools are having to simply “redesignate” staff as tutors for funding reasons, a union leader has warned.
Cash-strapped schools are having to use existing teaching assistants as tutors without any additional cover, Nick Brook, deputy general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said today.
This meant tutors were “going to work with exactly the same children, probably doing exactly the same things”, instead of being brought in as an “additionality” to existing classroom teaching staff.
He said this meant that, at an election in two years’ time, the government might be able to say that it hit its “promise” of providing six million tutoring courses, but without making a “jot of difference”.
He said policymakers needed to make sure that the NTP was “an additionality of activity, not a substitution”.
A letter sent by several organisations to former education secretary Kit Malthouse this September warned of the danger of NTP funding being used to cover teaching assistant costs.
Mr Brook warned that the way the scheme was set up, coupled with financial issues that schools are facing, was “pushing” schools to say: “I’m not calling you a TA anymore. I’m now calling you a tutor, Mrs Smith. You’re going to work with exactly the same children probably doing exactly the same things. But I’m going to be able to access that money.”
He added: “One of the challenges of how we are funding tutoring is if you’re a school and you’re struggling to make budgets balanced, then you are more likely to redesignate an existing member of staff as a tutor, because then you can use the 60 per cent subsidy to subsidise their wages.
“It makes it really, really hard then, for schools to find that 40 per cent extra to go external or buying in an extra tutor above and beyond what you’ve already got.
“Where this leads us to is a horrible situation where we hit the target, but miss the point. Government is able to say, in two years’ time, ‘We promised that we would deliver six million programmes of tutoring before the election. Believe it or not, we have. It hasn’t made a jot of difference. But we’ve delivered on our promise’.”
Schools can hire academic mentors - full-time, in-house staff members employed to provide intensive support to pupils who need it - or pay members of their own staff to deliver tutoring sessions directly as part of the NTP. Money from government can be used to cover 60 per cent of the unit cost of tuition.
Small groups of 1:3 are recommended in order to maintain high-quality and impactful tuition, but there is a maximum permitted tutor-pupil ratio of 1:6.
Schools have faced an array of financial pressures this year, which have led to many saying they are going to have to cut staff - including teaching assistants - in order to balance their budgets.
In a survey last month, run by the Association of School and College Leaders, more than half (54.6 per cent) of school leaders said they were considering reducing the number of teaching assistants and over two-thirds (67.8 per cent) said they would consider or would be likely to reduce other support staff.
Since then, schools have been given extra cash at the Autumn Statement, though this kicks in next year.
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.
