An extra £650m funding to help pupils catch up on teaching missed during the coronavirus lockdown will only start to be distributed to schools in September, the education minister Nick Gibb has said. The funding is part of a £1bn “massive catch-up operation” for schools due to be announced by the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, later on Friday. Of the £1bn, £350m will subsidise a nationwide tutoring programme to help pupils most at need. Gibb, the minister for school standards, said on Friday the £650m could be used at the discretion of headteachers with advice from the Department for Education and the Education Endowment Foundation. He said the funding would start to be paid in the academic year starting in September, meaning schools will in the meantime have to use their own resources to provide catch-up classes over the summer holidays.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Gibb said: “Schools will know it’s coming and they will be able to budget on that basis if they want to do things before September. But the money will start being distributed to schools, we’ll have more to say about that shortly, from the next academic year, September.” The funding announcement follows criticism that Boris Johnson’s government has failed to reopen schools quickly enough to avoid damaging the education of hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged pupils. Pressed on why the government could not follow the lead of Northern Ireland and guarantee that schools in England would reopen fully in September with 1-metre physical distancing, Gibb said: “Our clear intention is that we’ll come back in September [and] of course we’re always led by the advice of scientists, Sage [the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] advice.” He added: “We have over a million children now in our school system; we’re doing so in a phased, careful approach because the safety of the teachers and pupils lies at the heart of all our decision-making.” The health secretary, Matt Hancock, told the daily Downing Street briefing on Thursday there would not be a return to full-time education in England until the virus was “under control”. There was disappointment for the early years sector after the government initially announced it would benefit from the £650m pot, as well as colleges. Following a clarification late on Thursday night that the money was going to state primary and secondary schools only, the Early Years Alliance said it “beggars belief” that the sector had been excluded.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gibb said early years was “absolutely key” and that the government was working with experts on how best to support the under-fives and those aged 16 to 18 and “we’ll have more to say on that soon”. Gibb confirmed that just under half of the 230,000 laptops promised to vulnerable pupils had been delivered to local authorities – a figure disclosed earlier this week – but insisted the programme had been delivered on time. He added: “This is a fast-moving, very challenging set of circumstances that the government is facing – all governments around the world are facing. But we are delivering, we are doing the things that we need to do. “Obviously there are some things we can always do better but this is a government that’s working tirelessly to make sure that children’s education, while we’re during this crisis, continues as best we can.”