Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to provide further support for students who have fallen behind in their studies during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government has announced a package of support worth £1 billion to ensure that schools have the support they need to help all children and young people make up for lost teaching time, with extra support in the form of a tutoring programme for those who need it most.

This package of measures includes:

• A universal catch up premium for schools of £650 million to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time.
• A new £350 million National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils.

The ‘Covid-19 Recovery Guide for Schools’,[1] published by the Education Endowment Foundation, provides evidence-based approaches that will support schools to make the best use of the premium.

The premium will be paid as a grant to all state-funded schools in England over the 2020/21 academic year, in addition to schools’ core budgets for 2020-21. We will confirm the timetable for publishing institution-level allocations in due course.

[1] https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Covid-19_Resources/Covid-19_support_guide_for_schools.pdf.