A heads’ union has been left “disappointed” after schools minister Nick Gibb failed to commit to dropping a requirement for schools to top up National Tutoring Programme funding with their own cash.
Earlier this month Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), wrote to Mr Gibb warning him that catch-up cash allocated to schools would go “unspent” unless rules were changed so that schools no longer had to subsidise tutoring sessions from their own budgets.
But the minister has backed the existing subsidy policy in a written response to the union, seen by Tes.
Mr Gibb’s letter states: “We are asking schools to pay 40 per cent of the overall cost with the intention that the total spend on tutoring will see 2 million tutoring courses delivered during 2022-23.”
He adds that the department is “exploring options to support schools to provide tutoring”, saying: “I would be keen to learn of any further suggestions you may have.”
The ASCL had said in its initial letter that letting schools use NTP cash provided by the DfE without adding their own funds had “the potential to significantly increase the uptake of the NTP”.
No change in National Tutoring Programme funding rules
And just last week the government-funded Education Endowment Foundation said there was an urgent need to increase the government subsidy, to allow more schools to access tutoring for “more of their socio-economically disadvantaged pupils”.
Reacting to Mr Gibb’s letter, ASCL director of policy Julie McCulloch said that, given the state of school funding, the union “would have thought that ministers would embrace an easy win, which we think would result in an increase in the number of children being able to access the benefits of tutoring, rather than sticking rigidly to a policy which makes less and less sense”.
Mr Gibb says in his response that he is “very aware” that schools are facing challenges “with rising energy prices and inflation”.
Ms McCulloch added: ”At a time when the minister himself acknowledges that schools are facing financial challenges, it is surely common sense to enable them to access their allocated funding, whether or not they can afford to top it up.”
Currently, government NTP funding can be used to pay for 60 per cent of the total cost incurred by a school to deliver catch-up tutoring.
Mainstream schools are subject to a maximum hourly per-pupil rate of £18 - meaning they can claim £10.80 from the Department for Education. For non-mainstream schools, the rate is £47, enabling them to claim back £28.20.
But the ASCL had formally proposed that schools be allowed to use their full allocation - still ring-fenced for tutoring - without having to top up the remaining 40 per cent.
Last year schools using the school-led tutoring grant could claim the cost of 75 per cent of tuition from the DfE. This then dropped to 60 per cent this year and will fall further to 25 per cent next academic year - so mainstream schools would only be able to claim back £4.50 for a tutoring session.
Support for a change to increase or maximise the subsidy appeared to be gaining traction in recent weeks.
Alongside the ASCL’s letter, and the public statement from the EEF, John Nichols, president of The Tutors’ Association (TTA), had recently told Tes: “Schools obviously face a number of budgetary pressures, and because the NTP subsidy has dropped quite significantly since last year, there are very real fears that schools simply cannot afford to use their budget fully and tutoring will drop off their radar.”
And Tes also revealed that around 850 schools are set to have catch-up cash clawed back by the government because they did not return a form setting out how they spent the money.
A DfE spokesperson said today: “Over 2 million tutoring courses have been started through the National Tutoring Programme since it began, including almost 1.8 million across 80 per cent of schools last year.
“We are clear that 100 per cent of schools should be delivering the National Tutoring Programme, as government works with schools to help children catch up from lost learning in the pandemic.
“We have provided schools with over £1 billion to help them to embed tutoring into the school day, and settings can also use pupil premium funding to support pupils on the programme.”
