Catch-up tutoring scheme must better target disadvantaged pupils, report warns

The call has been made following evaluation of the first year of the National Tutoring Programme, which found that despite extra support being offered to students “the disadvantage gap remains wide”.

The evaluation warns that tutoring support is failing to target many of the most disadvantaged pupils in schools.

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Pupils eligible for pupil premium funding and free school meals are among groups the programme had been aimed at supporting when it launched.

But the scheme has no targets for pupil premium participation and instead disadvantaged young people are only “expected to be a key participant group”.

Researchers are recommending that future tutoring programmes need to “either clearly define for whom they are designed or acknowledge that schools may have different views about which of their pupils most need and would benefit from tuition”.

The evaluation found that less than half of children to receive tutoring were among those eligible for the pupil premium.

This is also significantly below the proportion highlighted in a pilot of online tutoring carried out in 2020, which found that six in 10 targeted pupils were eligible for pupil premium.

“Whilst schools had discretion over which pupils would receive tutoring, we anticipated that, due to the focus on supporting disadvantaged pupils and the guidance provided to schools, a high proportion of pupil premium eligible pupils would be selected,” said the evaluation, which has been carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).

This morning, the independent evaluation for the first year (2020/21) of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) Tuition Partners pillar has been published. pic.twitter.com/E7apSPgWZR

— National Foundation for Educational Research (@TheNFER) October 18, 2022

Ben Styles, the NFER’s head of classroom practice and workforce said that “the limited reach of the programme across pupil premium pupils in participating schools as a whole meant benefits were difficult to detect” among this group of disadvantaged pupils.

The research, which was commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation and involved the University of Westminster, found that primary school pupils supported by tutors achieved better grades in English, while secondary school students improved in both maths and English.

Other recommendations made include ensuring schools have greater clarity about their role in managing and delivering the tuition.

Future evaluation should also focus on the benefits of different models of tutoring on a variety of groups of children, added the NFER.

Earlier this month fears were raised that changes to the way the Covid-19 education catch-up programme is contracted runs the risk of disadvantaged children missing out on tutoring.