The government has announced a £1 billion plan for national tutoring which will see up to 100 million tutoring hours for children and young people across England. This comes as part of the government’s education recovery plan.

Commenting on the announcement, Dame Alison Peacock – CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching – said:

“There is no question that the impact of the pandemic on education is severe. Any solution needs to be fully resourced and shaped by the expertise of teachers. Allocating less than the amount of funding that has been called for by the government’s own recovery commissioner will undermine recovery before it has even had a chance to start.

One to one tuition is good. However, it is challenging. The tutors must be highly skilled and work in partnership with teachers to ensure that what they are providing is targeted, timely and relevant to the needs of the children and young people they are supporting.  

There is also still the unanswered question of plans for the school day. There are plenty of rumours and press briefings but still no confirmation. All of these plans need to be driven by schools and properly resourced. We risk making things worse if we get this wrong and the decisions are taken out of the hands of teachers who know their students best.”

The Chartered College of Teaching has previously looked at the research on extending the school day finding that the research points to ‘quality over quantity’