The new Covid catch-up tsar has said he will need more money from the government to deliver his ideal education recovery plan.

Asked in a Tes interview today if he was hopeful of more money from the Treasury, in addition to the £1.3 billion already announced, Sir Kevan Collins said: “Short answer: yes.

“For me, the recovery has to be fair, and that means that we have to face the needs of the children who have lost most, and when you look at the research, it’s really clear that the risk to our disadvantaged kids is huge.

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“It has to be focused, and we have to use the evidence to inform what we do - and there’s some good evidence to guide us. And we have to be pretty fearless, and that means we need to be ready to do things that are potentially quite difficult and quite tricky.”

‘Fearless’ Covid catch-up plans

He added: “The scale of this shock means that we have to be ready to be fearless in what we do, and that is going to take more resources, and that is something that people understand, and I think the prime minister, in his own statements, has accepted.”

Back in June last year, the government announced a £1 billion package to help to tackle the impact of lost learning during the pandemic.

The “Covid catch-up plan”, jointly announced by 10 Downing Street and the Department for Education, included £350 million for the National Tutoring Programme, and £650 million to be shared across state primary and secondary schools for leaders to spend as they saw fit - although it was expected the funds would be spent on “small group tuition for whoever needs it”.

Then last month the prime minister announced a further £300 million in catch-up funding, bringing the total value of the package to £1.3 billion.

But despite the need for more funding, Sir Kevin was positive about what could be done for young people whose education has been hit by the pandemic, particularly the youngest.

Asked by Tes if he thought it was possible for pupils to fully catch up with the learning they had lost because of the pandemic, Sir Kevan said: “It’s a great question and one that we should keep worrying about.

“Children are amazingly resilient. We all know this, those of us that spend our lives working with them. They are resilient and they come through all sorts of things in their lives.

“I have a huge amount of confidence for the way that we will, over time, support our youngest children if we’re ready to reorientate what we do and honour the fact that some of the things they might have done in the year group before.

“We need to make sure we give them the opportunity to have those experiences when they arrive at school.

“So, for example, Reception kids, having some time to build those social skills and all the rest, and not just pretending that we can miss Reception and go straight to Year 1, if you like.”