One million catch-up tutoring courses delivered

The Education Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi has announced that one million courses have been started by children through the National Tutoring Programme.

Of the estimated one million courses started since the beginning of the programme, around 532,000 were provided through the School-Led Tutoring route, which provides funding directly to schools giving them greater flexibility to source their own tutors, whether external or staff already working in the school.

As a result, up to £65m will be transferred into this route from the Academic Mentor and Tuition Partner pillars of the programme, giving more schools the autonomy and support to deliver high quality tutoring to as many children and young people as possible, and reflecting the department’s continued focus on following the evidence of what works.

To further support schools and meet increasing demand, the eligibility for recruiting Academic Mentors and schools has been updated, with minimum A level requirements replacing the requirement for a degree, along with increasing the rate of pay for all graduate mentors looking to enrol and support the programme.

Separately, while the Government expects group sizes of 1:3 to remain standard, schools working with tuition partners can now use their discretion when determining group sizes, with a cap of up to 1:6 to allow greater flexibility where needed (such as for phonics, where pair work is required).