The government’s Covid-19 catch-up fund for pupils in England is “badly targeted” and unlikely to prevent a further widening of the attainment gap between children from poor backgrounds and their wealthier classmates, according to critics.
The Education Policy Institute (EPI) said that even before the pandemic disadvantaged pupils’ learning lagged 18 months behind by the time they sat their GCSEs, and surveys had shown they were much more likely to have suffered serious learning loss during lockdown.
Yet instead of targeting the £650m extra funding where it was most needed, the EPI said the government had allocated the same amount of catch-up funding to schools in affluent areas as to schools in the poorest parts of the country, serving the most disadvantaged pupils.
“It is difficult to see the rationale for such a decision,” said the EPI executive chairman, David Laws, “and it means that schools where as many as half or more of children are in poverty won’t have the extra resources they need to pay for interventions that we know can make a difference.”
Laws, a former Liberal Democrat MP and a schools minister in the coalition, added: “It is concerning that the government has missed an opportunity to target extra funding to where it is most urgently needed. At a time when social mobility was already in danger of stalling, and with Covid significantly worsening the learning outlook for poor children, today’s decision could prove to be a costly mistake.”
The government’s £1bn catch-up package to support pupils who have spent months out of school as a result of the pandemic, is made up of £650m to be shared across state primary and secondary schools across England in the next academic year, as well as £350m for a tutoring scheme which will be targeted at disadvantaged pupils.
It was revealed in Schools Week on Monday, however, that almost £100m of that has been shaved off to provide catch-up tutoring for colleges and sixth forms who were left out of the original announcement.
On general school funding, the prime minister visiting a school in Kent confirmed increases promised earlier – the second year of a three-year settlement – under which each secondary school in England will attract a minimum of £5,150 per pupil and each primary a minimum of £4,000 under the national funding formula from 2021.
Labour’s shadow education secretary, Kate Green, said the increases would still leave schools worse off in 2022-23 than when the coalition government came to power in 2010. “Far more must be done for every child to have the opportunity to reach their full potential,” she said.
Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran said the Conservatives’ spending plans show no understanding of the challenges facing schools in September. “In the face of this crisis, spending plans announced last year are utterly unfit for purpose. The pandemic requires us to invest in education at all levels on an unprecedented scale.”
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, also on a school visit, highlighted problems with childcare and a shortage of summer holiday activities for school children in England as parents come under pressure to return to work.
He said: “The prime minister has said he wants people to go back to work in August, but he hasn’t provided the childcare and the support and lots of families are going to really struggle. So these next six weeks are really crucial, I think, for parents and also for children.”