The National Tutoring Programme is a government-funded, sector-led initiative to support schools to address the impact of Covid-19 school closures on pupils’ learning.

From the 2020-21 school year, the National Tutoring Programme will make high-quality tuition available to state-maintained primary and secondary schools, providing additional support to help pupils who have missed out the most as a result of school closures.

There is a substantial attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their classmates – and the EEF's analysis suggests this is likely to be growing significantly while schools are closed to most pupils.

There is extensive evidence showing the impact of tutoring to support pupils who have fallen behind.

We have seen first-hand the power of tutoring to help young people achieve their potential. We are proud to be part of this collective effort to get high-quality tutoring to those who need it most.

Andy Ratcliffe, Chief Executive Officer, Impetus

However, access to tutoring is often limited to the schools and parents that can most afford it. It’s estimated that around 80% of disadvantaged pupils currently don’t have access to quality tuition. The National Tutoring Programme aims to support schools in addressing this.

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) consists of two pillars;

• Tuition Partners: schools will be able to access heavily subsidised tuition from an approved list of tuition partners. These organisations – which will all be subject to quality, safeguarding and evaluation standards – will be given support and funding to reach as many disadvantaged pupils as possible.
• Academic Mentors: schools in the most disadvantaged areas will be supported to employ in-house academic mentors to provide intensive catch-up support to their pupils. Teach First will be supporting the recruitment, training and placement of the first cohort of academic mentors.

Guided by quality standards and clear criteria to target support to the most disadvantaged pupils, teachers and school leaders will decide which approach best fits their needs, which tuition partners to work with, and which pupils will benefit most from additional tuition.

The design and delivery of the National Tutoring Programme in its first year will be led by a collaboration of five charities: the Education Endowment Foundation, Sutton Trust, Impetus, Nesta and Teach First.

In June, four of these organisations launched pilots of four different models of online tuition with support from Wellcome Trust, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Hg Foundation, the Dulverton Trust, the Inflexion Foundation and other funders. The findings from these pilots will feed into the evidence underpinning the National Tutoring Programme.

For more information, please visit the NTP website where you can find more information and FAQs, or contact press@impetus.org.uk