School leaders are considering dropping out of the government’s post-pandemic scheme as it prepares to cut funding
Almost half of school leaders say the government’s national tutoring programme (NTP), set up to help pupils in England catch up after Covid, is not cost-effective, according to a new survey.
Most senior leaders who took part in the poll (58%) said they did not regard tuition as a long-term solution to closing the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils.
Continue reading...Public accounts committee warns that without more intervention, attainment gap could take decade to return to pre-Covid levels
It could take a decade for the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers to return to pre-pandemic levels in England without faster and more effective intervention, MPs have warned.
The estimate was made during evidence given to parliament’s influential public accounts committee (PAC) as part of its inquiry into education recovery after the disruption of Covid.
Continue reading...State school pupils twice as likely to feel they have fallen behind than peers in private schools, landmark study finds
Four out of five teenagers say their academic progress has suffered as a result of the pandemic, with state school pupils twice as likely to feel they have fallen behind than their peers in private schools, according to initial findings from a landmark study.
Half of the 16- and 17-year-olds questioned said the Covid disruption had left them less motivated to study, while 45% felt they have not been able to catch up with lost learning.
There was a lot of chaos in my life at the time and then we went into lockdown quite unprepared. There was a lot of confusion about schooling. I didn’t really have access to technology. I didn’t have online lessons, things like that. There was work that went on every week, but I couldn’t access it because I didn’t have the internet. I remember talking to one of my friends and they were like, ‘Oh have you seen the work that’s been put for English’, and I was like, ‘We have work?’
It was only in the September when we came back I finally got more support. I got a laptop and I got better access. A lot of people in my school had issues like me. A lot of people didn’t have technology or they didn’t have structured lessons, so we’ve had a lot to try to catch up on. A lot of the lessons have been quite content-heavy because it felt like we were trying to do two years in one, so that was quite stressful. And I felt like I had to work harder to do my GCSEs. I felt I had to do more to recover to my peers’ level.
Continue reading...Consultancy firm Randstad’s contract ‘must end’ unless it delivers learning missed during Covid
A national tutoring programme is failing to help the children who need it most, according to MPs, who say ministers should terminate their contract with the consultancy firm running the scheme unlessit “shapes up”.
A report by the education select committee gives a scathing account of the government’s £5bn national tutoring programme (NTP), which aims to help children in England catch up on learning missed during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.
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