Schools: Coronavirus

(asked on 4th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of catch-up support given that schools are allowed to use that premium for contingency planning for remote education and the purchasing additional devices or more textbooks.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 13th November 2020

The Government has announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion, including a catch-up premium worth a total of £650 million, to support schools in making up for lost teaching time. To help schools make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a support guide for schools, with evidence based approaches to catch-up for all students: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/national-tutoring-programme/covid-19-support-guide-for-schools/#nav-covid-19-support-guide-for-schools1. It has also published a further school planning guide for the academic year 2020/21: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/. Alongside this, the Government has also announced a new £350 million National Tutoring Programme, to increase access to high-quality tuition for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Government realises that every school will have different needs as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, and we advise schools to tailor the catch-up funding to their specific contexts, and towards the pupils who need it most. As part of their catch-up strategy, schools can spend their premium on contingency planning for remote education: for example, purchasing additional devices or more textbooks. The EEF COVID-19 Support Guide includes advice for schools in how to support effective remote education and access to technology. The Department for Education is also delivering a remote education support package, which includes access to the right technology to deliver remote education, peer to peer training on how to use this technology effectively, and practical tools, guidance and webinars. Additionally, over 340,000 laptops and tablets are being made available by the Department this term to support disadvantaged children in Years 3 to 11, whose face-to-face education may be disrupted.

Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 disruption on the attainment and progress of all pupils is a key research priority for the Government, and we have commissioned an independent research and assessment agency to consider catch-up needs and monitor progress over the course of the academic year.

Reticulating Splines