Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much funding has been allocated to the Oak National Academy in the 2020–21 financial year; and whether there will be an independent assessment of the educational value and value for money of the contract awarded to Oak National Academy.
The department made £500,000 in grant funding available to the Oak National Academy to underwrite additional start-up costs associated with their operation over the course of this summer term. A further £4.34 million grant funding has been made available to the Oak National Academy for the 2020-21 academic year, split over the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years.
The payment profile across the two financial years remains subject to confirmation. A requirement of this funding is that the Oak National Academy records and makes available the vast majority of their lessons for each subject by September, to give schools maximum flexibility to align the lessons and topics with their own curriculum planning. The funding provided to the Oak National Academy is to enable teachers to supplement their remote education contingency plans.
The department is currently considering approaches to evaluating the Oak National Academy’s effectiveness.