Britain’s largest teaching union has said it has “no confidence” in the government’s £350 million National Tutoring Programme (NTP), which was started last year to help disadvantaged pupils “catch up” on lost learning owing to school closures during the pandemic.
The NTP, announced last summer, aims to close the widening attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers under lockdown by giving schools access to “heavily subsidised” tuition from an approved list of vetted tuition providers.
But the NEU today said it had “no confidence” in the plan and that it was “too complicated for schools to use effectively”.
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And it said the programme “relies too heavily on private providers of tuition, whose quality is not assured, as well as being “insufficiently controlled by school leaders”.
The NTP is also offering “trained graduates” as “coaches” to schools in order to provide intensive catch-up support to their pupils, allowing teachers in these schools to focus on their classroom.
Yesterday the prime minister announced a further £300 million in catch-up funding.
But the NEU said today in its document outlining a plan for the reopening of schools: “It will be much better, and more effective, if schools are given increased staffing budgets to employ additional qualified teaching staff to support individualised and small-group tuition for pupils who need it when they return to school and college.”
The NEU also proposes that schools employ supply teachers and qualified teachers who have left the profession to return to work in schools and colleges.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise that extended restrictions on attendance have had a huge impact on education, and that many children need additional support at this time.
“That is why we are focusing our catch-up efforts and remote education support on those who need it most, including 1.3 million laptops and tablets and a further £300m to early years, schools and colleges for tutoring, building on the existing £1billion Covid Catch Up Fund.”
