Most school leaders say tutoring will be unsustainable once government funding finishes at the end of this academic year, research published today reveals.
Two separate reviews of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP)‘s third year, carried out by Ofsted and the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), highlight concerns about the flagship catch-up scheme’s sustainability.
School leaders in both studies said tutoring was having a positive impact and that they wanted to continue with it - but they were unsure this was financially possible once the subsidy ends.
The government subsidy of the four-year NTP has gradually reduced in value, from 75 per cent in the scheme’s first year to 50 per cent this year, and is due to be cut completely from next year.
“Most [leaders] planned to end or reduce their tutoring provision next year...because of the expected reduction in NTP funding and continuing increases in school costs,” Ofsted researchers wrote.
Ofsted visited 51 schools during the 2022-23 academic year, where inspectors and researchers observed tutoring sessions, interviewed pupils and staff, and carried out focus groups with tutees.
“In small primary schools, leaders were extremely concerned about the sustainability of tutoring without the NTP funding,” the researchers said.
Those planning to continue tended to be big schools with high pupil premium funding, they found.
The NFER conducted two surveys and 66 interviews with school staff using the NTP.
NFER researchers wrote: “In most schools that participated in the interviews, more tutoring was being offered in 2022-23 than before the NTP started in 2020-21, but often not as much as leaders would like.”
The scale of NTP funding was a “widespread concern for schools”, particularly for future years, they found.
One senior leader quoted in the NFER report commented: “Maintaining of standards of funding would allow us to continue. I don’t see schools carrying this on once the money goes.”
‘A crying shame’ if tutoring ends
Responding to the findings, Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said it was a “crying shame” that the tutoring programme could be stopped just as more schools started to be satisfied with it.
Ms McCulloch called for the government to provide the funding for tuition to be embedded into the school system as “the budgets of schools are stretched beyond breaking point”.
James Bowen, assistant general secretary at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “We are still in the dark over whether the government is committed to the programme in the longer term and if it will invest in tutoring properly, and we urge ministers to provide that clarity without delay.”
Here are five other key findings from the research published today:
1. Schools saw ‘positive impact’ of tutoring
Some 79 per cent of school staff surveyed by the NFER said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the third year of the NTP.
The NFER evaluation found that teachers and senior leaders perceived the NTP to have a positive impact on pupils’ attainment and progress. They particularly liked the programme where it involved small-group, one-to-one and well-targeted tuition.
Most schools reported staying within the recommended group sizes of three to six pupils.
2. Exam students were prioritised
Ofsted found that schools shifted their tutoring priorities after the reintroduction of exams in 2022.
Researchers said: “Typically more Year 11 pupils were being selected [for tutoring], particularly those who were borderline GCSE grade 3/4/5. This was despite many leaders telling us that pupils in key stage 3 had the most significant gaps in their knowledge and were most in need of catching up.”
Ms McCulloch said focusing on exam students was likely “the most effective use of limited money”.
3. Most secondaries used qualified teachers as tutors
In the third year of the NTP the subsidy reduced to 60 per cent but the funding was provided directly to schools instead of being channelled via the other two NTP routes of “tuition partners” (external tuition providers) or “academic mentors” (salaried members of staff).
Some 85 per cent of schools that responded to NFER’s survey were using the “schools-led” route of tutoring.
Secondary schools surveyed in the NTP’s third year tended to prefer to use qualified teachers as their tutors, Ofsted found.
But primary schools were more likely to use teaching assistants, who often “lacked the subject knowledge to address pupils’ misconceptions quickly”, Ofsted said.
Ofsted also pointed out, however, that using qualified teachers as tutors “might compound teacher shortages”.
4. Remote tutoring ‘weakest form’
Ofsted found that remote tutoring by tuition partners was the weakest form of tutoring, with schools sometimes having very little involvement in the sessions.
5. Tutoring in 16-19 provision ‘not used for catch-up’
Ofsted also evaluated tutoring for 16- to 19-year-olds. Researchers found that there were positive perceptions of tutoring and a preference for qualified teachers in the post-16 sector.
Ofsted said non-qualified teachers were “rarely given the in-depth training needed” to deliver good tutoring sessions to 16- to 19-year-olds.
Again, providers were not using tuition funding for catch-up, and rather using it on exam preparation and study skills -- particularly prioritising those resitting maths and English GCSEs, Ofsted found.
Recommendations
The NFER researchers recommended that the DfE should look at how disadvantaged pupils can be better targeted for tutoring.
“The government should explore how financial support can be sustained to allow tutoring to become a permanent support option to help schools close the attainment disadvantage gap,” said Ben Styles, NFER’S head of classroom practice.
Researchers also said it was “imperative that different aspects of tutoring are evaluated to understand which approaches work best in which circumstances”.
Responding to the NFER evaluation, schools minister Nick Gibb said: “This latest research confirms the positive contribution of the National Tutoring Programme to raising pupil attainment and closing the disadvantage gap.
“We will continue to support schools to deliver tutoring into the future as we work towards our goal to close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils.”
