Labour’s shadow education secretary is “deeply concerned” that the government’s catch-up plans are “not up to the scale of the challenge”.

Kate Green told headteachers that the policies announced so far by the government “barely scratch the surface” of addressing learning loss.

Exclusive: Covid catch-up needs more cash, says Collins

Sir Kevan Collins: Who is the new Covid catch-up tsar?

Learning loss: What is the purpose of extra ‘learning time’?

Addressing the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), Ms Green accused ministers of only thinking a few months ahead “in the most limited way” with their plans.

The government has made £1.7 billion of “catch-up” funding available in England to help children who have faced disruption from school and college closures during the pandemic.

As part of the recovery package, summer schools will be introduced later this later, along with the expansion of tutoring schemes.

But Ms Green called on the government to be “much more ambitious”, adding that summer schools and one-to-one tuition were only “short-term solutions”.

In a speech, she said: “Every single study shows that the attainment gap has widened in the last year. 

“The only thing that we do not know is the scale of the damage - the range of opportunities lost or the level of deepening inequality.

“In the years ahead, as that becomes clear, it must be our national mission to address it.”

On policies to help children catch up, Ms Green said: “I am deeply concerned that the government’s plans are simply not up to the scale of the challenge.

“Ministers may have realised there is a problem, but they lack the vision, ambition and commitment truly to address it.

“They’re thinking only a few months ahead, in the most limited way: a few hours of summer school, an additional 43 pence per pupil per day of funding.

“Policies that barely scratch the surface of addressing learning loss or ending educational inequality.”

The Labour Party recently launched a Bright Future Taskforce, which hopes to deliver a long-term strategy for children’s recovery.

Asked what she would do if she was appointed as education secretary, Ms Green said Labour would look at addressing “educational inequalities”.

She said the party would aim to have a recovery strategy that addressed “the learning loss and the social and emotional disruption of the last 12 months”.

Ms Green added that Labour would want to look at what teachers are doing in the classroom and “incentivise and reward teachers for brilliant teaching”.

On pupils returning to school this month, Ms Green said: “The challenge to government now, the challenge they’ve got to meet, is to keep them there.

“We can’t go back to the sort of hokey-cokey of children being in and out, in and out, sent home to isolate, brought back, bubbles going home, bubbles coming back in again.

“Some children out of school four, five, six times last term.”

Addressing delegates at the union’s virtual conference, Ms Green added that she was worried that there will be “a lot of pressure on schools and school leaders” after exams were cancelled for the second year in a row.

The government confirmed last month that teachers in England will decide pupils’ A-level and GCSE grades this summer.

Ms Green said: “I think the competitive model is not serving the best interests of all of our children.”