What catch-up funding is for

The government announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up lost time after school closure. This is especially important for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds. This funding includes:

• a one-off universal £650 million catch up premium for the 2020 to 2021 academic year to ensure that schools have the support they need to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time
• a £350 million National Tutoring Programme to provide additional, targeted support for those children and young people who need the most help, which includes:
  • a schools programme for 5 to 16-year-olds – for more information, see the National Tutoring Programme FAQs
  • a 16 to 19 tuition fund
  • an oral language intervention programme for reception-aged children

Eligibility

The followings settings are eligible:

• primary, secondary and all through local authority-maintained schools, academies and free schools
• local authority-maintained special schools
• special academies and free schools
• special schools not maintained by a local authority
• pupil referral units
• alternative provision (AP) academies and free schools
• local authority-maintained hospital schools and academies
• independent special schools

We will provide funding to local authorities for pupils with education, health and care (EHC) plans who are educated in independent special schools based on the number of such pupils in their area.

Funding allocations

School allocations will be calculated on a per pupil basis.

Mainstream school will get £80 for each pupil in from reception to year 11 inclusive.

Special, AP and hospital schools will get £240 for each place for the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

We have applied additional weighting to specialist settings, recognising the significantly higher per pupil costs they face. A typical primary school of 200 pupils will receive £16,000 while a typical secondary school of 1,000 pupils will receive £80,000.

Support our use of the funding

To support schools to make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a coronavirus (COVID-19) support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students. Our plan for use of the funding is based on the EEF guidance.

Our particular issues identified from the lost time of closure (both March - July 2020, and January - March 2021) are:

-Gaps in phonics knowledge in Year 1 and 2 - a large proportion of the phonics programme was not taught and the autumn check showed lower attainment than normal.
-The lack of progress in writing in KS2, particularly in Y3 and Y4 - the September baseline assessment data show attainment was lower than the previous spring term's data.
-Raising levels of anxiety amongst some pupils / families (and staff).