Over a million tutoring courses started under NTP scheme

But most of the courses have been started under the schools-led route, rather than through the controversial tuition partners route run by Randstad, which has been criticised for being “dysfunctional” and bureaucratic to use.

Just over 100,000 courses had been started through the partners route, compared with over half a million under the schools-led tuition pillar, according to the latest Government estimates.

The Department for Education estimated that 1,031,000 courses had been started by pupils as of February 27 this year.

In total, 311,000 starts were made by pupils in the 2020-21 academic year while 720,000 courses overall had been started in 2021-22, according to Government estimates.

Provisional data showed that just over half a million – 532,000 – courses had been started through the school-led pillar of the programme on February 9 2022, which equated to around 457,000 pupils as some pupils had had over 15 hours’ worth of tuition.

The Government suggested that around 1 in 6 of the pupils who have started tutoring had received more than one 15-hour course of sessions.

For the tuition partners route, run by Dutch company Randstad, only 114,000 courses had been started by pupils in the 2021-22 academic year, and this may include duplication of some pupils. Randstad has been criticised by school leaders for the bureaucracy of its booking system, with heads saying the system is “dysfunctional”.

A report from the Commons Education Select Committee, published on Thursday, said the Government must assess the success of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) under Randstad, and that if the company cannot deliver the scheme effectively, it must be “booted out”.

It said the Government’s flagship National Tutoring Programme appears to be “failing the most disadvantaged”, with the scheme reaching 100% of its target number of schools in south-west England by March 2021, but only reaching 58.8% of target schools in the North East.

In December 2021, only 52,000 courses had been started by pupils through the tuition partners pillar – 10% of Randstad’s target for this year.

As of February 27, 74,000 starts had been made on courses for the academic mentors pillar of the programme in the 2021-22 academic year, the Government announced on Friday.

While the Government said it expected group sizes of 1 to 3 to remain standard, schools working with tuition partners could now use their discretion when deciding on group sizes, with a cap of up to 1 to 6 to “allow greater flexibility where needed”, for example where pair work or phonics work was needed, the DfE said.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told the Association of School and College Leaders’ annual conference on Friday: “It’s important to step back and look at what we’ve achieved with the National Tutoring Programme.

“Tutoring used to be something that was the preserve of only a fortunate few.

“Thanks to this Government, today it’s benefiting all children who want it and need it, from Bristol to Blackpool and Newquay to Newcastle, helping them realise their potential.

“I am proud to announce that more than one million tutoring courses have been delivered since we rolled out this programme last year.”

He said that £65 million would be diverted from the academic mentors and tuition partners pillar towards the schools-led route.

The Department for Education said the move would give more schools “the autonomy and support to deliver high-quality tutoring to as many children and young people as possible”.

The news comes after the Education Select Committee complained in its report that there had been a lack of data released on the programme’s success.

The committee’s report said it had not received statistics or data from the company or from the Department for Education about the number of pupils being supported.

The DfE announced today that it would publish data on a half-termly basis, which the select committee had called for in its report yesterday.

But no data was released on Friday about the number of pupils receiving the Pupil Premium or who had special educational needs, which the committee had highlighted as a gap in the data.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said: “The Government’s recognition of what we have been saying for many months now, that tuition under the National Tutoring Programme is best delivered by schools, is welcomed.

“This has always made perfect sense as school leaders and teachers know their students better than anyone and can address their individual needs more effectively.

“It has taken far too long for the Government to recognise this fact but it has got there in the end.

“The £65 million extra funding announced today will help schools roll out the support that so many children and young people need to recover after two years of learning blighted by the pandemic.”