As pupils return to school, it is vital that they are able to catch up in a safe and secure environment.
An important part of this is the National Tutoring Programme, which is being backed with £1 billion of investment.
This will go towards catch-up tutoring for over six million pupils. The expansion of the National Tutoring Programme, which has been proven to boost attainment by three to five months, will help young people as they recover from the pandemic and work to fulfil their potential.
Support for schools to flexibly access external tuition providers will extend coverage across the whole country, with the project expected to reach more than 500,000 students this year.
Guidance will also be provided to support schools offering teacher-led tuition. We know how important it is to keep children in the classroom and it is right for schools to have the tools they need to provide this hands-on support.
As schools welcome pupils back with measures in place to minimise Covid-related disruption, including enhanced ventilation, regular testing and the vaccination of staff and older students, the importance of young people being in the classroom with their teachers cannot be underestimated.
Teachers are also returning to the classroom with additional support for training, especially in the early years of their careers to help improve outcomes for young people.
Further training support for our teachers is also being provided with the launch of the Early Career Framework, which is targeted at providing even more high-quality training opportunities for newly-qualified teachers in the first two years of their career.
This is just one of the teacher training programmes which support teachers at every stage of their career, being delivered with £400 million of funding.
More than £100 million is being invested through the 16-19 Tuition Fund in 2021-22. This will provide support for hundreds of thousands of young people to catch up with English and maths, as well as other academic and vocational subjects.
This additional support for the new school year follows the Department for Education’s summer school programme which saw Crawley secondary schools among more than 2,800 nationwide which hosted a summer school.
These sessions will help participating pupils to catch up on lost learning and experiences they missed out on, in anticipation of the new school year. With a range of extra-curricular and academic catch-up programmes, the summer schools sought to help pupils boost their confidence and improve their mental wellbeing.
Our children need to have the best possible start in life and in Parliament I will continue to work to ensure this happens in Crawley. For the 2022-23 school year the Education Secretary has increased local school funding to over £93 million, a rise of 3.2 per cent.
Henry Smith MP
