Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the National Tutoring Programme.

Since 2020, the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) has delivered over 3 million courses of tutoring to pupils most in need of catch up following the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is extensive evidence that tutoring is one of the most effective ways to accelerate academic progress. This is why the Department is providing more than £1 billion for tutoring, so that pupils can catch up through accessing high quality tuition.

The Year 2 Implementation and Process Evaluation report explored the implementation of the NTP, particularly the School Led Tutoring (SLT) route, which was new in the 2021/22 academic year. It also explored teacher and leader perceptions of whether the NTP has affected workloads, the effect of the NTP on pupil premium spend on tutoring, reasons for non engagement in the NTP overall or its individual routes, and perceptions of impact on pupils, staff and schools.

The Year 2 Implementation and Process evaluation report was published in October 2022 and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-tutoring-programme-year-2-implementation-and-process-evaluation.

The Year 2 Implementation and Process Evaluation report found most school leaders were satisfied with the NTP programme overall, and with the individual routes they were participating in. It found that all three routes of the NTP were perceived by head teachers to be having a positive effect on pupils’ attainment, self-confidence, and helping them catch up with their peers. It also found that most schools were prioritising pupil premium eligible pupils for tutoring across all routes.

The Year 2 Implementation and Process Evaluation compliments a quantitative impact evaluation, which explores the impact of NTP in its second year on educational attainment outcomes for pupils. This is due to be published in the autumn, alongside the Year 3 Implementation and Process Evaluation.