Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support his Department is providing to schools to help disadvantaged pupils catch-up on time missed as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

All children have had their education disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak, but it is likely that disadvantaged and vulnerable groups will have been hardest hit. The government has announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion, including a catch-up premium worth a total of £650 million to support schools to make up for lost teaching time. To help schools make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a support guide for schools, 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 guidance includes evidence-based approaches to catch-up for all students and a further school planning guide: 2020 to 2021, which is available here:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/.

Alongside this universal grant, a National Tutoring Programme worth £350 million will deliver proven, successful interventions to the most disadvantaged young people. Research shows high-quality individual and small group tuition can add up to five months of progress for disadvantaged pupils.

Schools continue to receive the pupil premium, worth almost £2.4 billion this year. We strongly encourage school leaders to review their Pupil Premium Strategy to ensure that it responds to the needs of pupils as they resume learning in the autumn term.