As a well-deserved summer break for teachers and pupils comes to a close and the new academic year begins, we set our sights on continuing to deliver on our commitment to making high quality tutoring available to schools, and build on the progress already made in year one of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP).
Today marks the start of the next phase of our journey on the road to Education Recovery. I’m excited to announce that for a second consecutive year, the NTP will continue helping with the delivery of additional high quality tutoring sessions for pupils whose education has been impacted by the pandemic.
This is a project which I am incredibly humbled to be involved in. Having children myself who have experienced significant disruption to their learning in light of the pandemic and felt the impact this had on family life, it really brings the importance of this initiative to life. It’s helping to change the lives of the future generation, who have unfortunately had valuable learning time and social experiences taken away from them due to the pandemic. Every pupil has a right to quality education and it’s important to help them reach their full potential. Engaging with the NTP can help us achieve this.
Building on the successes of year one
As we move into the second phase of the NTP, it’s important to take a look back at the successes of the inaugural year to see how far we’ve come in helping hundreds of thousands of pupils recover from lost learning time.
One of the main drivers motivating me to ensure phase two will build on the successes of the launch year is the amazing feedback we’ve received over the past few months. I’ve been impressed by the commitment shown by schools and education professionals to support pupils in catching up, and following on from the successful launch of the programme in 2020, I wanted to take this opportunity to share just a few of the comments to give you an idea of what’s to come:
“We understand the value of face-to-face, high-quality tutoring, so we thought it was important to take advantage of the NTP. We wanted to be able to support disadvantaged students who had fallen behind during lockdown.”
Hope Merritt, teacher at Wood Green Academy
“We are very grateful to the NTP that we can use the full spectrum of support to suit our pupils. The NTP is one of the best practical tools schools have been given. We are very grateful for the subsidy as there is no way we could have afforded it on our own.”
Simrat Mavi, Deputy Head at St Giles
“The Maths tutoring sessions have helped me learn more and cover parts which I didn’t know so much to get better. It has improved my self-confidence especially on topics like quadratic graphs. The lessons have been of a high standard throughout the programme.”
Stephen, Year 10 pupil, Staindrop Academy, Darlington
Changes to the programme for year two: greater choice for schools
From experience and feedback, we’ve learnt that some schools would prefer to source their own tutors, perhaps from their existing teaching staff or a local resource that is familiar with their pupils. For AY 2021/22, we are including School-Led Tutoring as part of the NTP, which provides a grant funded payment paid directly to schools to help facilitate this.
We also know that some schools in specific areas need extra assistance in delivering additional hours of tutoring catch-up sessions. Through the NTP, eligible schools will be able to access Academic Mentors who can act as an ‘in-school’ resource, alongside current teaching staff.
Further tweaks to the NTP for year two include improved ease of access. Based on your feedback, we’ve developed the service to make it even easier to access tutoring through the programme, via our new online portal. We want to make sure that teacher time is invested in bringing pupils back up-to-speed and not on the burden of handling additional administration.
Looking ahead
I hope you are all as excited as I am in moving into the second phase of the programme. Working together, we’re taking positive steps in contributing towards the education and wellbeing of those who missed out on valuable learning time due to no fault of their own.
We’ve learnt a lot from the first year and are looking forward to delivering an improved experience for the coming academic year and reaching significantly more pupils through the NTP.
In the coming days you will be hearing from some of the schools that have already signed up to the programme for this academic year, to help provide real insight into what the NTP means for them, how it’s benefiting their pupils and how it’s helping us get back to where we left off.
