Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to mitigate the effects of covid-19 on children's education.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The Department is focusing on recovering from the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic through the delivery of a multi-year programme.

The Department has made almost £5 billion available for education recovery in England. This includes up to £1.5 billion for the tutoring of children and young people aged 5 to 19, nearly £2 billion of direct funding to schools so that they can deliver evidence-based interventions based on pupil needs, £400 million to help provide training opportunities for teachers and early year practitioners and over £800 million to cover the cost of additional hours of teaching and learning for students aged 16 to 19.

The Department’s education recovery funding exists in addition to Pupil Premium funding, which is worth over £2.6 billion in the 2022/23 financial year. This additional funding enables schools in England to provide extra support to improve the academic and personal achievements of disadvantaged pupils.

The Autumn Statement has also provided a net increase of £2 billion in 2023/24 and a further £2 billion in 2024-25 in the core schools budget. These figures are over and above totals announced in the 2021 Spending Review. This brings the core schools budget to a total of £58.8 billion in the 2024/25 financial year. This will enable head teachers to continue to invest in the areas that the Department knows positively impacts educational attainment, including high quality teaching and targeted support to the children who need it most.

Alongside this, the Schools White Paper sets out how the Department will deliver recovery, not just through its specific recovery investments, but through a wider programme of reforms.