Labour is tomorrow [Tuesday] challenging new Education Secretary
to deliver a recovery guarantee to deliver new
opportunities for every child ensuring they are not held back by
the pandemic.
In her speech to the Labour Party Conference, , Shadow Education Secretary will set out how the
Party’s ambitious recovery plan – extending the school day for
new activities including art, sport, cooking, coding, providing
small group tutoring and mental health support – could deliver
eight months of additional academic progress for children,
helping them bounce back from time out of school.
Green will challenge the government to match this ambition for
children’s futures by delivering a recovery guarantee that
provides every child with new opportunities to develop the
skills, knowledge and social development missed during the
average of 115 days children have had out of school.
The Conservatives’ current plans fail to come close to meeting
this guarantee. Already half a million pupils have left secondary
school without any support to recover lost learning, as the
government failed to deliver tutoring to even the 3% pupils
targeted during the last school year.
This year fewer than one in 16 children are set to get tutoring
support from the government’s provider while parents’ calls for
wellbeing to be the post-pandemic priority have been ignored by
government.
In her speech to Labour Party Conference, is expected to say:
“Conference, our children’s futures, life chances and aspirations
must not be limited by the Conservatives treating them as an
afterthought.
“They must not be limited by a recovery plan that the
Government’s own catch-up expert described as “feeble”.
“And they must not be limited by a weak Prime Minister who took
months to sack a failing Secretary of State.
“That is why today, Conference, I am challenging the new
Education Secretary to deliver a recovery guarantee.
“To ensure that every single child who has been let down, ignored
and undervalued by this government not only recovers from the
pandemic, but thrives on new opportunities to learn, play and
develop - just as Labour’s plan would enable them to do.”
Ends
Notes to editors
- Under the government’s national tutoring programme contract,
524,000 are due to receive tutoring in 2021/22, equivalent to
less than one in 16 pupils (GOV.UK)
- Labour has set out a comprehensive Children’s Recovery Plan to help every child
bounce back from the pandemic. Labour’s plan would deliver:
o Small group tutoring for all who need it
o Breakfast clubs and activities for every child
o Quality mental health support for children in every school
o Continued professional development for teachers to support
pupils to catch up on lost learning, and
o Targeted extra investment from early years to further education
to support young people who struggled most with learning in
lockdown
- The Education Endowment Foundation estimates small group
tuition results in 4 months of additional academic progress, that
breakfast clubs result in 2 months progress and that programmes
which extend the school day can deliver 2 months progress; with
professional development for teachers the most effective
in-school intervention for improving pupil outcomes.
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Toolkit/complete/EEF-Teaching-Learning-Toolkit-October-2018.pdf
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/magic-breakfast/
- Labour analysis estimates that in 2021 560,918 students left
secondary school without any recovery support.
|
Year
|
Total pupils leaving secondary school
|
|
Estimated proportion of these pupils receiving support
under NTP
|
Estimated leaving without support
|
|
20/21
|
580,031
|
|
19,113
|
560,918
|
- 250,000 pupils were enrolled to receive tutoring in 2020/21
- Assuming the pupils receiving this support are distributed
evenly in proportion to the number of pupils in each school year,
over half a million young people are estimated to have left
secondary school with no catch-up support.
- Pupils in each school year - GOV.UK
