Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what evaluation criteria they are using to assess the effectiveness of the Education Recovery programme.

The department is evaluating the impact of current recovery work and developing metrics and an evaluation plan to monitor the overall education recovery package as well as specific interventions, including for specific groups of learners.

The department has commissioned Renaissance Learning and their subcontractor, the Education Policy Institute, to provide a baseline assessment of the learning loss and catch-up needs for pupils in schools in England, and to monitor progress over the course of the 2020-21 academic year. We are currently seeking commercial agreements for further academic years.

The department has a contract with Ipsos MORI, in consortium with Sheffield Hallam University and the Centre for Education and Youth, to undertake a mixed-methods study design (including surveys, interviews, and case studies) to examine how schools are tackling the issue of lost learning. Results from the study will be used to understand how the catch-up premium funds have been spent and how best to support schools to tackle learning loss.

The department has commissioned evaluations of specific interventions, such as the National Tutoring Programme, to understand the effectiveness of individual interventions and will use management information to track progress against delivery.

We will collate all of this evidence to assess the performance of the overall programme.