GCSE: Coronavirus

(asked on 9th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what specific support his Department will provide to help enable current in Year 10 pupil to be adequately prepared for GCSEs at the end of next academic year.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 17th March 2021

The Government recognises that extended school and college restrictions have had a substantial impact on children and young people’s education and are committed to helping pupils make up lost education due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

We know that it is important that pupils in this cohort are able to obtain a grade safely and fairly and we will continue to monitor the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on all pupils to ensure that those due to take exams in 2022 are supported to move on to the next stage of their lives fairly.

The Department has appointed Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner to oversee the long-term plan to help schools support pupils make up their education over the course of this Parliament. Sir Kevan will engage with parents, pupils, and teachers in the development of this broader approach and review how evidence-based interventions can be used to address the impact the COVID-19 outbreak has had on education. We will share further details in due course.

As an immediate step, on 24 February 2021, the Department committed an additional £700 million to support summer schools, tutoring, early language interventions and additional support to schools to help pupils make up their education. This builds on the £1 billion catch-up package announced in June 2020, which included a Catch-up Premium, shared across state primary and secondary schools to support schools to make up for lost teaching time over this academic year. It also includes the National Tutoring Programme which provides schools with access to high-quality, subsidised tuition in this academic year and next.

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