Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they have spent on personal tutoring for students since March 2020.

In summer 2020 a £1 billion catch up package was announced to help to tackle the impact of lost teaching time as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, including a £350 million National Tutoring Programme (NTP) for disadvantaged students.

The NTP programme for 5–16-year-olds has two pillars:

• Schools can access high quality, subsidised tuition support from approved Tuition Partners
• Schools in the most disadvantaged areas have been supported to employ in house Academic Mentors to provide tuition to their pupils

In addition to the 5-16 programme, the government made available up to £96 million to support small group tuition for 16–19-year-olds, which is delivered through the 16-19 tuition fund, and £9 million to support the improvement of early language skills in reception classes this academic year.

Schools can choose from a variety of tuition models through Tuition Partners, including online, face-to-face, small-group and one-to-one tuition, dependent on the needs of pupils. Tuition is available in English, Mathematics, humanities, modern foreign languages, and science for secondary pupils, and literacy, numeracy, and science for primary aged pupils.

Since the launch of the NTP in November 2020, over 232,000 pupils have been enrolled to receive tutoring from over 5,400 schools. Our ambition is to offer tuition to 250,000 pupils. Of those enrolled, over 173,000 have already commenced tutoring.

The department estimates that over 400,000 young people will have been eligible for tuition through the 16-19 tuition fund in academic year 2020/21. The 16-19 tuition fund enables further education colleges and sixth forms, including independent training providers, to arrange one-to-one and small group tuition for disadvantaged students whose education has been disrupted because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

In February 2021, the department announced a £700 million plan to continue to support young people to catch up on lost education, including an £83 million expansion of the NTP for 5–16-year-olds. This brings the total funding for the next academic year to £215 million. We also announced an additional £102 million to extend the 16-19 tuition fund for next academic year.

As part of the education recovery plan announced on 2 June, the department shared plans to invest additional funding to help further expand tuition support. This includes:

• £218 million of new funding to be directed to the Tuition Partner and Academic Mentor pillars of the NTP. This is in addition to the £215 million already announced to be invested in the academic year 2021/22
• £579 million of funding will be provided to schools to develop localised school-led tutoring provision using new or existing school staff. This will work alongside the NTP offer and will see tutors directly employed by schools
• £222 million to fund an extension to the 16-19 tuition fund for two further years from academic year 2022/23.