Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 21 July 2020 to Question 72965, on Schools: Mental Health, whether schools will be able to use the £650 million catch-up premium for pastoral support for young people.

The £650 million ‘catch-up premium’ is to support schools to make up for lost teaching time. Our expectation is that this funding will be spent on the additional activities required to support children and young people to catch up after a period of disruption to their education.

To support settings to make best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation have published a COVID-19 Support Guide for Schools with evidence-based approaches to catch-up for all students. Schools should use this document to help them direct their additional funding in the most effective way, which is available here:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/national-tutoring-programme/covid-19-support-guide-for-schools/#nav-covid-19-support-guide-for-schools1.

The guide is clear that evidence-based interventions, including those focused on tackling pupils’ behaviour or social and emotional needs in order to support them with re-engaging with school, will support pupils to catch up as they return to school.

The Education Endowment Foundation have also published a further School Planning Guide for the new academic year, which is available here:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/.