National Tutoring Programme Year 4 – Evaluation and Reflections
27 September 2024
This report summarises the findings from research undertaken for the Department for Education (DfE) to reflect on four years of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) from 2020-21 to 2023-24 and schools’ intentions to deliver tutoring in future. The NTP has been an important part of the Government’s Covid-19 recovery response, supporting schools to respond to the disruption to education caused by the pandemic.
The research gathered data on the experiences of schools which had and had not participated in the NTP, via an online survey of senior leaders and interviews with a sub-sample of those senior leaders.
Key Findings
- NTP funding had enabled schools to increase the scale and quality of small group or 1:1 academic support compared with what they had provided prior to the pandemic.
- Around three quarters of senior leaders who had participated in the NTP agreed that pupils had engaged with the content of the tutoring, had built positive relationships with tutors, had found tutoring beneficial and had enjoyed the tutoring sessions.
- Most senior leaders who had participated in the NTP were satisfied with it overall, driven particularly by a perception of impact on students, including on their attainment and confidence.
- The main reasons for never participating in the NTP related to a lack of available funding to top-up the subsidy or the funding allocation being too small to support sufficient tutoring. Those who previously participated mainly ceased involvement due to the reduced subsidy.
- For some who were participating, the lack of continued ringfenced funding was reported to be a barrier to the future provision of tutoring at all, while for others it would likely result in a highly scaled back and more targeted provision.