Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of funding for the summer schools programme.

The Summer Schools programme was a demand-led initiative for summer 2021, as part of the £5 billion COVID-19 pandemic recovery response. The Summer Schools programme supported almost 340,000 pupils across 2,800 schools in England to access some of the fundamental teaching and enrichment activities that are vitally important to child development.

The research findings for the summer schools programme, assessing the effectiveness of the programme, were published on 31 March 2022 and the report is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1065682/Summer_schools_research_final_report_March_2022.pdf.

The research found that Department funding had been central in maximising the support that schools could offer to pupils in transitioning between primary and secondary.