Reduced demand has forced five of the National Tutoring Programme’s biggest providers to close or scale back their operations – despite government promises that the flagship scheme would create a “vibrant tutoring market”.
Ministers said tutoring would become a “permanent feature” of the system “serving schools right across England” after funding wound down. Government subsidies for tutoring ended last academic year.
However, those claims have been challenged after Schools Week found five of the most popular companies or charities used under the NTP are winding down operations, mostly because of reduced demand.
Nick Brook, the former chair of the government’s strategic tutoring advisory group, said no one wanted the market to shrink back to pre-NTP levels.
“But, right now, you wouldn’t bet against that happening, given the dire financial challenges inherited by the new government and budget shortfalls facing schools.”
Schools Week has obtained figures showing where funding from the NTP went, the first time such data has been made public.
The Department for Education could only provide spend on the tuition partner route during the second year of the scheme. It does not have data for year three or four, as funding was provided directly to schools.
The Education Endowment Foundation supplied the data for year one, when it ran the scheme.
Connex Education Partnership and MyTutor both got paid more than £10 million across the two years. The third best-paid was Third Space Learning, earning nearly £8 million.
All three plan to keep offering tutoring, but other big earners do not.
Education giant Pearson set up a tutoring service for the NTP, providing 172,000 hours over the past four years. The company received £3.6 million across the two years we have figures for.
But a spokesperson said it had “seen demand for tutoring services from schools reduce significantly” over the past year and it was now “winding down” the Pearson Tutoring service.
White Rose Maths, which got £1.5 million, made the “difficult decision” to end its tutoring in July as demand slowed following a “reduction in subsidies and tightening school budgets”.
It “remains committed” to supporting schools with “high-quality maths resources and training”.
In year one, schools only had to pay 25 per cent towards costs. That rose to 50 per cent last year.
Coach Bright, a tutor provider since 2014, has had to “scale back” operations “as the resources schools have to spend on our work has reduced”.
Joe McGinn, its chief executive, added: “The NTP was a positive thing for disadvantaged pupils, and it allowed us to dramatically increase our impact.
“But the intended ‘legacy effect’, where schools would then continue with the provision using money from other budgets, hasn’t happened.”
EM Tuition has “diversified” and is concentrating on specialised tuition to pupils out of education, through council contracts.
“It would have been nice for tutoring for all children to continue … But schools can’t afford it.”
Meanwhile, The Brilliant Club closed its programme in 2023. The charity supported 13,676 students in three years and felt it was “morally right and important to use our infrastructure to join the collective efforts across the sector”.
Despite ministers’ promises, a National Foundation for Educational Research report last year found the NTP had failed to create a “sustainable” tutoring market.
Nearly 40 per cent of unspent tutoring cash was clawed back from schools in 2022-23.
Susannah Hardyman, the chief executive of the charity Action Tutoring, said it was “working hard to raise philanthropic support to fill the significant gap left by the end of the NTP funding”.
Like other supporters, she called for state-funded tutoring for disadvantaged pupils to be made a “priority again”. Labour has been quiet on the intervention, but education secretary Bridget Phillipson has previously said she would “look” at “tailored support”.
The DfE said tutoring guidance, published in May, provided information for schools on tutoring this year and beyond, including on working with external organisations.
Interesting article. There are many stories of how the NTP really made a difference for children who missed out on schooling over the course of the Covid pandemic. Yes, mistakes were made in the setup and organisation of the programme, but overall it was a really valuable initiative.