Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Barran on 24 February (HL Deb col 340), what plans they have to involve independent schools in the National Tutoring Programme.

The National Tutoring Programme is delivered using high-quality tutoring organisations that have been selected against a robust set of criteria, including ‘safeguarding’, ‘understanding schools working and challenges’, and ‘excellence in delivery’, following applications from hundreds of organisations. Further information on these criteria is available here: https://nationaltutoring.org.uk/tuition-partners/.

As well as working through established tutoring providers, the programme is happy to accept applications from other organisations, for example, associations of independent schools, who meet the necessary criteria.

Following feedback from schools, funding has also been provided directly to state-funded schools so that they can use their own staff for tutoring. Potential tutors are required to be qualified teachers or undertake bespoke training. Schools may engage tutors from their local networks, including from independent schools through new or pre-existing partnership arrangements.