Take-up of the government’s flagship catch-up programme has soared in the past few weeks, but a heads’ leader has put this down to the Department for Education “pressurising” schools to use it.
Data released by the DfE today shows that, as of 26 June, there had been 2,092,663 starts on the National Tutoring Programme, which was an increase of 584,614 (39 per cent) since the figures were last released on 8 May. The DfE has estimated that 80 per cent of schools have been using the programme.
The vast majority of these latest starts - 520,405 - were made using the school-led tutoring route, through which heads and teachers organise tuition themselves.
Just 35,605 of the extra courses were started using the tuition partners route and 28,604 using the academic mentors route - the two other pillars of the programme.
The huge rise in take-up has come after Nadhim Zahawi, when he was education secretary, revealed plans to publish a controversial “league table” showing schools’ take-up of the flagship catch-up programme from autumn.
Meanwhile, a campaign that involved DfE staff ringing thousands of schools in order to boost take-up - which some likened to a “telesales” drive - was started at the end of April.
Catch-up tutoring: DfE ‘pressurising’ schools to use the NTP
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said he was “not surprised” by the increase in take-up, given that the government had been ”engaged in a campaign to pressurise” schools to use the NTP.
“This has involved besieging them with telephone calls and the threat of a league table of schools’ take-up of the programme, which is due to be published in the autumn,” he added.
Participation in the scheme increased by 39 per cent from 8 May 2022 to 26 June, which compares with a 26 per cent increase between 13 March and 8 May - before the league table was announced and before the calling campaign had got properly underway.
The original target was for the scheme to reach 2 million starts this academic year.
The figure for 2021-22 is currently 1,781,94, which is more than 200,000 short of the target (some of the total number of 2,092,663 starts were in the 2020-21 academic year).
But schools are being encouraged to continue using the programme as part of any summer provision they are running, even after term has finished.
Schools minister Will Quince said: “The National Tutoring Programme is helping to level up opportunities for millions of children across England and these latest figures are further evidence of the programme revolutionising the support available to the children who need it most.”
New NTP contract winners announced
The new data was released as it was announced that the Education Development Trust, Tribal Group and Cognition Education have been chosen to run elements of the NTP from next year.
Back in March, the DfE announced that £349 million of tutoring cash would go directly to schools from the next academic year.
This was in a bid to “simplify” the system after the DfE finally decided to end its contract with Dutch recruitment firm Randstad, which had been running the NTP but had struggled to meet targets.
