Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Government's press release entitled, Billion pound Covid catch-up plan to tackle impact of lost teaching time, published on 19 June, what steps he will take to ensure that money spent from that package goes to children who have had the least access to face-to-face teaching time during the covid-19 outbreak.

Every pupil in the country has experienced unprecedented disruption to their education as a result of COVID-19. The £1 billion catch-up fund is intended to support schools in helping pupils make up for time spent out of the classroom. Through this fund, in the next academic year, all state-funded primary and secondary schools in England will receive a share of the £650 million catch-up premium.

School leaders have discretion to use this additional funding to meet the identified needs of their pupils and to help them fill gaps in curriculum knowledge resulting from extended school closures. On 19 June, the Education Endowment Foundation published a guide to help school leaders and staff decide how to use this funding to best support their pupils and their outcomes.

In addition, the £350 million National Tutoring Programme will provide extra support for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, who will be amongst the hardest hit by the disruption to education.