Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to encourage schools to take part in the National Tutoring Programme so far; and what further steps they will take to increase this uptake.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

In the 2021/22 academic year, 87% of schools participated in the National Tutoring Programme (NTP). In the 2022/23 academic year, up to 19 January 2023, 66% of schools have participated so far. The department anticipates that the number of schools taking part will continue to increase throughout the year, as it did during the 2021/22 academic year.

The department has delivered a range of activities to raise awareness of NTP and encourage non-engaged schools to take part. This has included emails to schools, webinars, in person events and social media engagement. Practical guidance has been provided to support head teachers to implement tutoring and share best practice in case studies and blogs. The department offers a dedicated customer support desk to respond to queries on tutoring.

An outbound call campaign is underway, targeting schools that are not yet engaged. The purpose of the calls is to offer personalised support to senior leaders to understand what barriers they may be facing and advise how to overcome them. The department is using the insight gained from these phone calls to inform improvements to the wider NTP messaging strategy.