PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Schools: North West Durham (30 October 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much (a) covid-19 catch-up premium and (b) National Tutoring Programme funding has been allocated to schools in North West Durham constituency.

Asked by:
Mr Richard Holden (Conservative)

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) for 5-16 year olds is an ambitious scheme that will provide additional, targeted support for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils who need the most help to catch up. The NTP has two pillars which can be accessed by schools. Firstly, schools will be able to access high quality, subsidised tuition from a selection of approved Tuition Partners. The partners will offer a variety of tuition models for schools to choose from, including online and face-to-face, and the cost of tutoring will be subsidised by the Department by 75%. The NTP went live on 2 November 2020 and we will have further information about participating schools as they begin to request tutoring support over the coming weeks. Schools can access Tuition Partner support here: https://nationaltutoring.org.uk/ntp-tuition-partners.

The second pillar of the NTP supports schools in the most disadvantaged areas to employ in-house academic mentors who can provide small group and one-to-one tuition to selected pupils. Eligible schools can request academic mentors. The first cohort saw 188 mentors start in schools on 2 November 2020, and a further two cohorts will follow in January and February 2021. If schools in North West Durham would like to register interest for a mentor, they can do so here: https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/hire-academic-mentors.

Alongside the NTP, the catch-up premium, worth £650 million, provides universal funding to support schools to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time during the 2020/21 academic year. Schools should use their catch-up premium funding as a single total from which to prioritise support for all pupils, guided by the level of individual need. The attached table shows that £916,880 worth of catch-up premium funding has been provisionally allocated to the North West Durham parliamentary constituency for the 2020/21 academic year. These allocations are based on the published rates and school census data from October 2019. The final allocations will be re-calculated once the October 2020 school census data is available.

Answered by:
Nick Gibb (Conservative)
9 November 2020