Schools should not be forced to spend their portion of the £1 billion Covid catch-up fund on personal protective equipment, supply teachers or adaptations to school buildings, the children’s commissioner has warned.

The catch-up fund, which the government announced in June, is intended to help schools tackle the impact of lost teaching time due to Covid-19. 

However, last week heads’ union the Association of School and College Leaders warned that Covid safety costs could “wipe out” the funding.

And now children’s commissioner Anne Longfield has joined the debate in her Childhood in the Time of Covid report, published today.

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The report recommends that: “Schools should target their portion of the £1 billion catch-up fund on vulnerable and disadvantaged children who have lost out the most, and they should not be forced to spend it on PPE, supply teachers or adaptations to school buildings.

“Reducing educational disparities between disadvantaged children and their wealthier peers must be central to the government’s levelling up agenda.”

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Ms Longfield also repeats her call for next year’s GCSE and A-level exams to be “pushed back as far as possible while ensuring that children receive results in time to progress to college or university as normal in the autumn”.

Her other recommendations relating to schools include:

• There needs to be a greater focus on pastoral care in the coming weeks and months, supported by accelerated implementation of the government’s Green Paper on mental health, so that every child can access counselling in school.
• Children need to be put at the heart of planning for further lockdowns, local or national, so that schools are the last to close and first to reopen if there are further lockdowns.

Ms Longfield said: “Children have fewer health risks from Covid-19 and yet they have suffered disproportionately from the nation’s efforts to contain the virus.

“While it has been good to see a greater understanding in parts of Whitehall and Westminster about what it means to be a vulnerable child, many of the decisions taken over the last six months have not put children first. While pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops opened, the majority of children were not able to attend school.’

She added: “After all the sacrifices children have made over the last few months, we should repay them with a comprehensive recovery package - ‘a Nightingale moment’ that puts their interests first.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Supporting children and their wellbeing has been central to our coronavirus response, including getting pupils back to school.

“We have also invested significantly in charities working with vulnerable children and our £1 billion Covid catch-up fund will help tackle the impact of lost time in education.”