Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to answer of 29 June 2021 to Question 21978 on National Tutoring Programme, how many and what proportion of the 234,000 pupils enrolled in the National Tutoring Programme are in each local authority.

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) provides additional, targeted support to disadvantaged pupils by providing schools with access to high quality, subsidised tuition from a selection of approved Tuition Partners.

Since its launch in November 2020, over 234,000 pupils have enrolled to receive tutoring and, of those enrolled, over 186,000 pupils have already commenced tutoring. The Department does not have information on the split of the 234,000 pupils who have enrolled on the NTP at local authority level.

The programme ensures that additional support has been allocated to regions with the largest numbers of disadvantaged pupils and in regions where access to tutoring has been historically lower.

The NTP is led by demand by schools, and the Department has undertaken a range of activities with schools to ensure maximum awareness within the sector and to encourage schools to sign up to the programme. We are engaging directly with school leaders, local networks of schools, and national stakeholders to ensure that the NTP reaches as many disadvantaged pupils as possible. We will continue focusing on those areas with the most disadvantaged pupils, and where we would like to see more schools take up the opportunity.

Building on the successful first year of the programme, we aim to reach 750,000 disadvantaged pupils during the academic year 2021/22.