Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to help pupils from low income backgrounds who have missed out on schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The closure of schools to all but our most vulnerable children, and those from keyworker families, was a regrettable but necessary measure. Now it is a national priority for all pupils to enjoy full-time education at school as this is the best place to improve their well-being and development. We have put in place a range of measures to help schools address the time lost; this is especially important for disadvantaged pupils who have been affected most by time away from school.

Our £100 million support for remote education distributed 220,000 laptops and 57,000 internet connections to disadvantaged pupils, to enable them to continue learning at home, as well as supporting the foundation of the popular Oak Academy. The £1 billion COVID catch-up package, announced in June, includes the National Tutoring Programme. This will provide up to £350 million of targeted support for disadvantaged pupils who are most at risk of falling further behind. From November, this investment will give schools in all regions access to subsidised tuition supplied by approved tuition partners. The programme will support schools in the most deprived areas to use in-house academic mentors to give small groups intensive catch-up tuition, small group tuition for 16-19-year olds and the improvement of early language skills in reception classes.

To complement the National Tutoring Programme, our £650million catch-up premium is enabling schools to target funding at specific pupil needs. The £1 billion package helps schools take immediate action to address the lost learning pupils are facing as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and is in addition to the £14.4 billion 3-year investment for schools announced last year.

We continue to provide pupil premium funding, worth £2.4 billion, that allows school leaders to design support reflecting their disadvantaged pupils’ changing needs.