Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that an attainment gap does not form, as a result of school closures, during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government is committed to helping children and young people make up education lost as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. We recognise that disruption to education will have been felt differently by individual students, depending on their circumstances.

As an immediate step, we have made available £1.7 billion in funding to support education recovery for pupils across nurseries, schools, and colleges.

In June 2020, the Department announced an initial package of support worth £1 billion, including a £650 million ‘Catch Up Premium’ to support schools to make up for lost teaching time and £350 million for the National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils. This will increase access to high quality tuition for the most disadvantaged young people, helping to accelerate their academic progress and tackling the attainment gap between them and their peers.

In February 2021, the Department committed to further funding of £700 million to fund summer schools, expansions of tutoring programmes and a recovery premium for the next academic year.

The Government has appointed Sir Kevan Collins as the Education Recovery Commissioner to advise on the approach for education recovery and the development of a long term plan to help pupils make up their learning over the course of this Parliament. The objectives of the Education Recovery Commissioner as outlined in the terms of reference are to advise on the design and implementation of potential interventions that will help students catch up education lost due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This will be informed by evidence so that schools can more effectively target resources and support at pupils and areas in greatest need. Academic and non academic factors in supporting attainment will form a part of this work.

The terms of reference for the Education Recovery Commissioner are published here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/960070/Terms_of_reference.pdf#:~:text=Education%20Recovery%20Commissioner%3A%20role%20specification%20and%20terms%20of,approach%20for%20education%20recovery%2C%20with%20a%20particular%20focus.