School tutoring: One third of £594m post-lockdown cash unspent

About one third of the £594m earmarked for tutoring to help children catch up after Covid lockdowns has gone unspent, a BBC investigation has found.

The government's National Tutoring Programme (NTP) offers one-to-one or group lessons.

Schools must top up any government money from their own budgets, something some teachers say they cannot afford.

The government said it had helped millions of children - but Labour called the scheme a "shocking failure".

Almost £209m of the £594.3m allocated to the NTP for the previous two academic years has not been spent, according to a BBC Freedom of Information request.

The scheme, launched in November 2020, provides primary and secondary schools with funding to subsidise tutoring. Any money not spent each academic year is returned to the Treasury.

Charles Barnett, assistant head teacher at Wensleydale School and Sixth Form, welcomed the initial idea but said it took "a very short amount of time to realise it wouldn't work effectively for us".

"Both cost versus impact, they just didn't add up for us," he said. "And then we couldn't reach enough students with what they were offering in the ways that they were offering it, and there simply wasn't the choice for us as a small rural school to tap into that offer."

The latest Department for Education (DfE) data estimates that 66% of schools in England have participated in the NTP this academic year, as of January.

London has the highest rates of participation, at 73%. The lowest is seen in the North East, at 62%.

In the 21-22 academic year, 87% of schools in England used the scheme.

Ellen Widdup from Woodbridge has three children, aged 7, 13 and 15. She told BBC Radio Suffolk that as a single parent, she was working full time throughout the pandemic, making home schooling impossible. Ellen said her children definitely fell behind.

"I think that this offer from the government was brilliant in of helping children get back on track," she said. "I just think it's awful that all that money is  now going back to the government when it could've been spent."

Dr Rebecca Montacute, head of research and policy at education charity Sutton Trust, said participation had been higher in cities where there were already "a lot more agencies operating or charities that were trying to get tutoring to disadvantaged students".

The NTP covered 75% of costs for school-led tutoring in the 21-22 academic year. This year, it provides 60%. In September, it is planned to drop to 25% for the 2023-24 academic year.

Dr Montacute said reducing the subsidy could mean schools either "won't want to or won't be able to" use the programme.

Steve Haines, Director of Public Affairs at youth charity Impetus, said evidence shows tutoring can help pupils make accelerated progress, but "the NTP will only work if schools are able to use it".

He added pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely "to their GCSE English and maths exams, and we are concerned that unless the government makes the changes necessary for more schools to use the scheme, they will fall behind even further".

The government had initially aimed for 65% of NTP tuition go to disadvantaged pupils. During the 21-22 academic year, 47% of the tuition did.

Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour's shadow education secretary, called the scheme a "shocking failure".

She said: "The government failed children throughout the pandemic and is failing to prioritise their futures now, with the result that the learning gap between children on free school meals and those not has widened to the biggest gap for a decade."

Lib Dem education spokesperson Munira Wilson MP said: "How can the government claim to be prioritising levelling up while leaving the most disadvantaged children behind":[]}