Responding to a report from the Education Policy Institute, which
shows maths outcomes for primary-aged pupils remain below
pre-pandemic levels, Julie McCulloch, Director of Policy at the
Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“The pandemic had a huge impact on learning and, although schools
have been doing everything they can to mitigate this learning
loss, these findings further highlight how lacking the
government’s education recovery programme has been in offering
the level of support required for pupils to catch up on what they
have missed.
“The fact of the matter is that the government has failed to
invest enough money into education recovery, and one of its key
recovery strategies – the National Tutoring Programme – is deeply
flawed because it requires schools to top-up government
allocations with funding that they do not have. This is
compounded by the fact that school budgets are under
extraordinary pressure as a result of years of underfunding. The
level of primary school per pupil funding is so low that some
small schools are barely sustainable.
“With maths outcomes for primary school pupils still below
pre-pandemic levels, and a major shortage of teachers threatening
maths standards in secondary schools, it is remarkable that the
Prime Minister has chosen to focus his attention on a misguided
plan to extend the teaching of maths for all pupils to 18.
“His priority should be to fix the problems that currently exist
by ensuring that schools have the funding and teachers they
need.”
