Headteachers have urged the government to take seven steps to address problems arising from the ongoing Covid pandemic, amid concerns that national education catch-up plans will not go far enough.

Covid catch-up: Seven proposals to help schools bounce back

A report by the NAHT school leaders’ union, A blueprint for a stronger and fairer system for all, calls for the government to:

1. Prioritise early years

“As a result of the pandemic, many young children will have missed out on crucial early experiences linked to social and emotional development. For many, there have been reduced opportunities to play, interact and socialise with other children and early years professionals,” the report says.

“The government must, therefore, place investment in the early years at the heart of its educational recovery plan.”

The report says the government should increase the early years pupil premium to “achieve parity with the primary pupil premium so that early intervention can be prioritised”, and also calls for the funding of 30 hours of childcare for working parents to be reviewed so that parents not in work can also benefit.

It adds that the widespread closures of children’s centres over the past decade “was a grave error”, and that the government’s recent proposals for a Start for Life package and family hubs could be a means of addressing this.

2. Improve support for mental health and wellbeing

The report says that emerging evidence suggests that demands for mental health provision within schools have increased significantly.

“The pandemic has exposed the lack of ambition in the government’s current plans to improve mental health provision for school-aged children,” it adds.

“The original plan to have mental health support teams covering 20-25 per cent of the country by 2023-24 did not go far or fast enough.”

It says that £79 million has been added to the scheme, but that the rollout needs to be faster, and that attention must be paid to the mental health of school staff, too.

3. Invest in the teaching profession

The report argues that professional development for teachers should sit “at the heart of an ambitious recovery plan”.

“The government also needs to ensure that any new teacher that has entered the profession during the pandemic has the necessary support to compensate for the disruption they would have experienced during their training. At the very least, this should include funded, additional, and ongoing support from a suitably trained mentor,” it says.

4. Provide targeted academic support for pupils where needed

The report says that currently “too few” pupils are able to benefit from tuition support, with the government’s plan for 524,000 pupils to receive tuition next year representing “a relatively small proportion of the total school population”, which should be seen in the context of over 2 million pupils eligible for some form of pupil premium funding in 2020-21.

“Meeting this need will require a significant increase in government investment in tutoring but also a new flexible approach to scale up tutoring provision rapidly across all parts of the country,” it says.

“Alongside existing tutoring programmes, schools should therefore be funded to appoint and deploy tutors themselves rather than rely on external providers to meet their particular needs and contexts.”

The report adds that the government should rethink plans to taper tutoring subsidies, as under current plans schools could be expected to pay for 90 per cent of tutoring in 2023-24.

And it says that the National Tutoring Programme is “one effective way” to support catch-up but that the government should look at other effective interventions and lend them its support.

5. Expand extracurricular provision

It says the government should expand the work of current extracurricular providers and rebuild and expand youth facilities so that pupils can access a range of activities.

And in what could be seen as implicit criticism of plans to extend the school day, it says that: “Crucially, this is not about simply adding more hours to the school day but increasing access to a wider range of extracurricular activities and opportunities including during evenings, weekends and school holidays.”

6. Invest in school technology

The report says that online lessons such as those produced by Oak National Academy could be aligned with in-class teaching to improve the quality of feedback for pupils and reduce teacher workload.

“There is an opportunity to repurpose and improve the online videos and resources created during the pandemic, including those produced by the government-backed Oak Academy, to support homework and home learning on an ongoing basis,” it says.

“As a bare minimum, the government must ensure that every child has access to an internet-connected device that allows them to engage with and complete work set by their school, with the necessary data allowances.”

7. Remove unnecessary distractions

“As we move into a new school year, schools must be freed from unnecessary distractions and burdens so that they can continue to meet the relentless challenges of the pandemic and focus on providing the vital support that pupils need,” the report says.

“It would be a mistake to rush to simply reimpose the accountability system that existed prior to Covid-19. To do so would potentially hamper the work of schools at this crucial time, and act as an unnecessary and unhelpful distraction.”

It adds that the pause in Ofsted inspections during the pandemic has given schools time to reflect on the nature of the accountability system.

NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: “Schools have gone to incredible lengths in order to protect and care for pupils in the most unimaginably challenging of times. There is no doubt that this vital work helped to shield large numbers of children from the worst effects of the pandemic.

“While the government has been deliberating, school staff have already been quietly, but determinedly, getting on with the crucial task of supporting pupils. In fact, this work never stopped. It is essential that the recovery effort of the next few years recognises and builds on the excellent work that has already been done. Simplistic ‘bolt-on’ measures will not work and should be avoided.

“The government has promised that the recovery effort will see that ‘no child will be left behind’. That is the right approach. But it is also a big promise. The only way the government keeps that promise is by fully backing the recovery effort with ambitious funding, too.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that in today’s unsettled world this country’s long-term future depends on the young people in school and college now. We have to give them everything we can to help them make a better fist of it than we have. A failure to invest in education is a failure to invest in the nation’s future.”

The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.