Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 3rd February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2021 to Question 131337 on Students: Coronavirus, what the terms of reference are for the group monitoring and advising on lost and differential learning due to the covid-19 outbreak; when the members were appointed to that group; if he will publish the membership of that group; how many times that group plans to meet; and when that group plans to report.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 15th February 2021

The Department recognises that school closures have had a significant impact on the education of young people across the country, and that disruption will have been felt differently by individual students, depending on their circumstances. We will work in collaboration with the wider education sector to develop a long-term plan to make sure children and young people have the chance to make up their education over the course of this Parliament. Sir Kevan Collins, in his role as Education Recovery Commissioner, will work with Government and the Department’s stakeholders on assessing and addressing the impact of differential learning loss for students.

To support students to catch up with their education, the Government has announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion to support children and young people. This includes a ‘Catch up Premium’ worth £650 million and a £350 million National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils. The Department has also announced that we will provide a further programme of catch up. This will involve a further £300 million for early years, schools and colleges for tutoring and we will work in collaboration with the education sector to develop specific initiatives for summer schools and a COVID Premium to support catch up.

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