A government plan to publish data revealing each school’s take-up of the National Tutoring Progamme (NTP) is “deeply unfair” and “designed to distract from the mess” of its catch-up effort, headteachers have said today.
The plan to publish data showing how each school has used the NTP this academic year is detailed in a letter from the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, to heads today. The Department for Education (DfE) said it aims to “urge remaining schools to particpate” in the programme.
Mr Zahawi’s letter announces plans to publish data on individual schools’ engagement with the catch-up programme from this autumn, the DfE said.
The data will be shared with parents as part of the government’s “pledge”, announced in its Schools White Paper, to share how each pupil is being supported to catch up in English and maths.
The letter to headteachers will also warn them that the data will be shared with Ofsted. The DfE has not said whether the information will feed into inspection reports but it plans to work with the watchdog on how it can use the data “over the coming months”.
About 40 per cent of schools have yet to offer any catch-up tutoring sessions this academic year, the DfE said.
Each school that has not yet offered tutoring will be contacted individually from this week to “discuss their plans and offer them more support”.
But the plan has been dismissed by headteachers’ leaders as “deeply unfair” and ”political grandstanding designed to distract from the mess the government has made of the NTP”.
James Bowen, head of policy at the NAHT union, said that the “hard stick of accountability” was “never the way to win hearts and minds”.
He added: “It’s deeply unfair they’re doing this, because some schools haven’t been able to access tutors. There may be all sorts of reasons why schools aren’t using tutoring.”
Covid catch-up plans
In today’s letter, Mr Zahawi tells schools not to “miss out on an opportunity to help pupils who could benefit now”.
“Starting this week, my department will contact those schools yet to offer tutoring support to discuss their plans and offer further support to ensure they can offer tutoring to their pupils this term.
“As part of my desire to ensure greater transparency of the impact of the programme, I am planning to publish data on each school’s tutoring delivery at the end of the year, alongside the funding allocations and numbers of pupils eligible for the pupil premium. I will also share this information with Ofsted.”
But Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said the “bizarre” letter, sent on a Bank Holiday Monday, was an “underhand” way of “effectively introducing a new accountability measure”.
“Aside from the bizarre decision to send a letter to schools on a Bank Holiday Monday, this announcement smacks of political grandstanding designed to distract from the mess the government has made of the National Tutoring Programme,” he said.
“When the DfE set out guidance for this year’s NTP, it did not mention that it would be publishing some sort of league table on take-up and sharing this with Ofsted.
“This is effectively a new accountability measure, which has been introduced at the eleventh hour in a rather underhand manner.”
Mr Bowen said school leaders should be free to make decisions about how they achieve outcomes for their pupils, and held to account on those.
“We have to let school leaders make those decisions. They are held to account for standards in their schools. If they haven’t used tutoring and are getting brilliant outcomes, then that’s the decision they’ve taken and they shouldn’t be criticised for that. I think it’s a blunt way of holding schools to account.”
Tutoring overhaul
The government revealed in March that all £349 million for the NTP would go directly to schools from the next academic year.
Just under 60 per cent of schools in England have participated in the NTP this academic year, according to DfE data from last month.
But the data shows there have been varying rates of uptake across the country, with only 56.4 per cent participating in the South West, for example.
Schools that don’t use all the tutoring cash they have been allocated for this year also face being forced to hand it back, despite much of the funding only being paid out by the government at the end of April.
Last month, the education secretary announced that the government would shift £65 million in catch-up cash to the school-led tuition route of the National Tutoring Programme - which is run directly by schools - and away from the academic mentor and tuition partner pillars, which are currently administered by external providers.
From last November, the DfE ordered schools to start submitting information on how they were spending the school-led tutoring cash they were allocated for this year.
The data collection directive came after Tes revealed that most schools would not be able to begin delivering tuition for pupils until the spring term because of late allocation of funding and training.
Mr Barton said the DfE plan to publish school-level data in the autumn was an attempt to “shift the focus” away from the government’s catch-up efforts “failings” and on to schools.
“The NTP is not straightforward to say the least. It comprises three ‘tutoring routes’ and comes with a complex set of conditions attached. The funding is also only a partial subsidy, with schools expected to meet the rest of the cost of tuition through other budgets.
“This is at a time when schools have been extremely hard-pressed, coping with extra costs generated by the pandemic, such as supply cover for Covid-related staff absence.
“In addition, one of the routes - the tuition partners scheme, which provides funding for subsidised private tuition - has been so beset with problems that it has been belatedly abandoned by the government, but not before a number of schools spent a great deal of time and energy trying to make it work.
“Schools have also been under huge pressure for large parts of this academic year, coping with high levels of pupil and staff absence caused by Covid, which will inevitably have affected their recovery programmes.
“All of this means that take-up is bound to be variable. The government could and should have provided a recovery programme which was simple and adequately funded, instead of the chaotic and lacklustre programme over which it has presided.
“The decision to publish data feels very much like an attempt to shift the focus away from its manifest failings and on to schools.”
