Only around one in six schools will continue offering tutoring in the future, new research suggests, with calls for ministers to explore further funding options now the flagship National Tutoring Programme has ended.
A study of 1,984 school leaders by the National Foundation for Educational Research found it would “not be sustainable for them to continue” tutoring without additional funding.
Tutoring was “heavily reliant” on the availablity of ring fenced funding, researchers found.
The NFER study reflects on the last four years of the NTP, which came to its planned end in August after being launched during the pandemic to help pupils catch-up.
Here’s what you need to know…
1. Tutoring unlikely to continue
Funding mechanisms for the NTP have varied, but the last two years have seen schools handed the money directly to use, subject to certain conditions. A government subsidy was tapered down to 50 per cent last year.
If ring-fenced funding were still available, 64 per cent of leaders said they would be likely or very likely to offer tutoring in the future.
However, if funding was not available, this dropped to just 15 per cent.
For those who were unlikely to offer it, it was “most often because of insufficient funding to deliver tutoring”.
“Most senior leaders interviewed reported that without additional funding – both the government funding available specifically for tutoring and school budgets more broadly – it would not be sustainable for them to continue tutoring beyond the lifespan of the NTP because they cannot afford to pay for tutoring from core budgets.”
NFER said it suggested the future of tutoring was “heavily reliant on the availability of ring fenced funding and the flexibility of its use”.
Of those likely to provide tutoring, this was “most often because they wanted to provide more disadvantaged pupils with individual or small group support, and they felt that tutoring would benefit pupils’ academic outcomes”.
Schools Week revealed this month how reduced demand has forced some NTP providers to close or scale back their operations – despite government pledges of a “vibrant tutoring market”.
2. DfE should explore funding options
Among NFER’s recommendations is that DfE should “explore funding options to allow tutoring to be embedded more securely in schools”.
Schools should be provided with information on how to access tutoring or catch up funding, for example charitable grants which some schools have received, NFER said.
The DfE should also build an evidence-base around best practice in tutoring, such as session duration, frequency and the best time of day.
3. Two-thirds of schools didn’t use NTP last year
Of those surveyed, 43 per cent of senior leaders said they did not use the NTP in 2023-24 – the programme’s final year. This included 29 per cent who had used it in previous years, and 14 per cent who had never participated.
For those who dropped out, almost two thirds – 69 per cent – said the reduced subsidy rate was the key reason for no longer participating.
The administration of NTP funding was another reason, including a high administrative burden for accessing funding (33 per cent), difficulty in forward planning given the annual funding arrangements (33 per cent), and burdensome reporting requirements (30 per cent).
Of those who have never used the NTP, the main reasons were a lack of available funding to top-up the subsidy (47 per cent) or the funding allocation being too small to support sufficient tutoring (32 per cent).
4. Half of leaders liked NTP
Just over half (57 per cent) of the 1,713 leaders who engaged with the NTP at some point reported “satisfaction”.
A minority (16 per cent) reported dissatisfaction mainly related to funding and reporting requirements seen to be complicated and onerous for leaders and school business managers.
Some felt that funding information could have been received earlier and would have preferred fewer funding restrictions.
The remaining respondents either did not answer the question (22 per cent) or were unsure (4 per cent).
Those interviewed were satisfied by the perceived success of the programme and the perceived impact it had on pupils and on closing the attainment gap.
Senior leaders believed that the most significant impact of the NTP was on improving pupils’ attainment and their self-confidence (61 per cent agreed/strongly agreed).
School-led tutoring, introduced in its second year where schools are given cash directly to organise their own tutors, was the most popular, mainly because of the flexibility, NFER said.
5. But less than a third have tutoring strategy
Just under half of NTP participating schools reported that there was a positive culture of tutoring (47 per cent) or that tutoring was part of the school’s daily provision (46 per cent). Just 28 per cent had developed a tutoring strategy.
This was much lower in schools no longer participating in the NTP or which had never participated.
The NFER said these findings “suggest that challenges remain in fully embedding tutoring across schools, despite the government emphasis on this form of support over the last four years”.
“Interviews suggested that the NTP had helped schools to enhance the culture and quality of tutoring compared with before Covid-19, because they had the funding to do so.
“There was concern, however, about the longevity and sustainability of that enhanced culture following the final year of NTP funding.”
6. Small improvements to attainment
NFER has also evaluated the impact of tutoring on pupil attainment in year three of the programme, when the government subsidy sat at 60 per cent.
They found NTP participated was associated with “small improvements in English and maths outcomes” in key stage two. Improvements in maths were larger than English.
This equated to one months’ progress or less.
But there was “more limited” evidence at key stage four to show NTP may be associated with “very small improvements” in both subjects.
Across both key stages, they expect the true NTP impact to be “greater than these results suggest” due to “dilution and negative bias”.
The impact was “broadly similar across pupils and schools with different characteristics”.
