Guidance

16 to 19 funding: additional hours in study programmes for 2022 to 2023

Updated 27 February 2023

Applies to England

Introduction

As part of the government’s commitment to a long-term education recovery plan, we are investing a further £800m across the next 3 academic years to fund 40 additional learning hours for band 5 and T Level students (and a proportionate increase for those in lower bands) in 16 to 19 education.

We will allocate this funding in academic year 2022 to 2023 funding allocations and have already published the new funding bands.

Additional hours have been introduced to aid education recovery. This, alongside other education recovery programmes such as the 16 to 19 tuition fund will help ensure gaps in learning caused by disruption to education can be filled.

In the long term, we aim to permanently embed additional hours in 16 to 19 education, resulting in an increase in the amount of teaching and learning students receive and improving outcomes. We intend to review options for doing this over a longer period, including considering further changes to funding band hours and exploring whether there are particular areas of teaching and learning that should be prioritised in order to improve outcomes.

Important points:

• we have increased funding band hours for academic year 2022 to 2023 to account for the additional hours and these bands will be enforced by recovery of funding where hours are not increased, resulting in students falling into lower funding bands
• in academic year 2022 to 2023, we expect all institutions to deliver on average 40 more hours on band 5 programmes than in academic year 2020 to 2021. We recognise there will be some variation with differences in cohorts and courses, but we will analyse where the data and end of year reports suggest that teaching hours have not significantly increased.

Institutions should:

• use additional hours flexibly, broadly in line with study programme guidance, to best meet the needs of students
• prioritise maths in the use of additional hours where there is an identified student need
• use additional hours to support areas such as mental health, wellbeing or study skills where these are a barrier for students effectively accessing teaching and learning

In addition to individualised learner record (ILR) and school census returns, institutions will be expected to produce a short end of year report on the delivery of additional hours.

Supporting information

We publish the contractual requirements for planned hours and additional hours in our funding guidance each year. We will include all the relevant information on additional hours in the funding guidance for academic year 2022 to 2023.

We also publish guidance on:

• planning and delivery of study programmes
• additional hours in T Levels

What additional hours can and should be used for

Qualification time

The primary focus of additional hours is more teaching and learning. As such, the majority of additional hours should be used flexibly to meet the needs of students on planned teacher/tutor led qualification activity in line with 16 to 19 study programme guidance.

In addition to the flexibilities for all study programme hours, institutions should also:

• prioritise maths in the use of additional time where there is an identified student need
• where a student has identified barriers to accessing teaching and learning, provide support in areas such as mental health, wellbeing, and study skills where appropriate

Prioritising maths

The pandemic has led to significant learning loss in maths, a subject with strong links to earnings and productivity. While there is no formal requirement to use additional hours for more maths for all students, and we acknowledge that for eligible students the 16 to 19 tuition fund is often used to support maths learning, we expect institutions to prioritise maths in the use of additional hours where there is an identified student need.

For example

• if a student is behind on maths
• they do not hold a grade 4 GCSE in maths
• as an opportunity to consider scope to offer core maths
• to aid progression to the university or career of their choosing

The Joint Mathematical Council of the UK and the Royal Society Advisory Committee’s survey on mathematics education found that more than half of students are 3 months or more behind in maths because of the pandemic and that A level maths students have found the transition from GCSE more challenging this year in comparison to other years.

Higher levels of achievement in maths are associated with higher earnings for individuals and higher productivity. Evidence from the London School for Economics suggests that earnings returns associated with taking a maths or science A level and 3+ A levels overall is associated with an earnings increase of 3.3% for men, and 8.8% for women.

Mental health and wellbeing

Although teaching and learning are the primary focus of additional hours, and therefore most students should receive additional planned teacher/tutor led qualification activity, we recognise that poor mental health can act as a barrier for some students in accessing teaching and learning. As such, for some students, additional hours may be better utilised supporting them to tackle these barriers.

Where additional time is used for this purpose, it should be targeted to individual students with an identified need for mental health support, although those students could be brought together for support in groups.

For example, a resilience session with a group of students – all of whom have been individually identified as having a need for mental health support and resilience training – is acceptable. Whereas a resilience session for a tutorial group, where not everyone has a need for the training, is not.

Appropriate use of additional hours to support mental health and wellbeing should be recorded in ILR and census returns as non-qualification hours and may include:

• support to build study skills and exam resilience
• enrichment activities and opportunities to build social connection
• transition support into 16 to 19 education/adjust to new environments
• additional educational one to one support helping students to cope better within education settings
• one to one therapeutic work delivered by a trained mental health specialist

High needs funding for additional hours and flexibilities

To ensure students with high needs up to age 25, or those aged 19 to 25 with an education, health and care (EHC) plan can benefit, institutions have flexibility in how they deliver additional hours for these students, subject to the relevant local authority agreeing to any necessary change to the EHC plan and/or high needs funding required.

Additional funding has been added to the high needs funding allocations to local authorities to take into account that institutions offering extra hours of study to students with high needs may require additional funding. Institutions and local authorities should work together in deciding what constitutes an equivalent of additional time for a student with high needs, and/or with an EHC plan.

Delivering additional hours for these students could include (but is not limited to):

• more time where it is safe, effective, and viable
• enriched teaching time within the current day or more time with greater teacher ratios
• more access to specialist facilities such as sensory rooms and hydrotherapy
• evidence based literacy and numeracy interventions where relevant.

Monitoring and reporting on additional hours

We have published a separate guidance document on monitoring and reporting on additional hours.

The 2022 to 2023 academic year funding band hours will be enforced in the normal way as set out in our funding guidance. Our guidance includes the additional requirements for recording additional hours and the associated ILR and school census data fields in the guidance.

Where a student receives planned hours less than the minimum in each band, they will be funded for the lower band. As a result, funding will be recovered (accounting for the lower banding) on a 2-year lagged basis. As funding for students with high needs is calculated differently, changes to the funding band hours will have no negative impact on the amount of funding they attract.

Most students already receive more hours of education than the minimum for the funding band they are in. However, there is a strong expectation that institutions increase average hours by 40 across their study programmes, even when those programmes were previously delivering above the new minimum. Institutions will be expected to increase the average hours they deliver to their students based on the average hours each individual institution delivered in academic year 2020 to 2021.

Although we will not recover funding for study programmes that are delivering hours above the new minimum, we will monitor and ensure compliance through our funding agreements and contracts with providers.

We will address non-compliance through our post-16 regions territorial teams. Where applicable, we may:

• refer for further support from our post-16 regions territorial teams or notify the FE Commissioner
• notify the relevant Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) so they can take it into consideration as part of their wider oversight of those schools

We will treat additional hours in T Levels separately and have published guidance about this. Hours delivered in T Levels will not be counted towards an institution’s average hours.

Where ILR or school census returns do not show that in academic year 2022 to 2023 an institution’s average hours has increased by 40 hours on academic year 2020 to 2021, for example due to students with special educational needs (SEND) or disabilities receiving alternatives to additional time or a programme with a high number of hours has been replaced by a T level, this should be detailed in the end of year report.

Planned hours in funding allocations

We use a funding formula to calculate institutions’ allocations each academic year and determine the funding rate for each student by the size of their study programme based on their planned hours.

For 2022 to 2023 allocations, we will use 2020 to 2021 data to determine the proportion of students in each band based on the definition of the bands that applied in that year.

We will then use those proportions to calculate 2022 to 2023 allocations at the new funding rates applicable to each band that have been increased to support the delivery of additional hours.

Errors in recording planned hours are likely to have an impact on an institution’s funding allocation and any funding reconciliation. Institutions must record accurate planned hours so that their funding is calculated correctly.

Supporting information

We publish the contractual requirements for planned hours and additional hours in our funding guidance each year. We have included all the relevant information on additional hours in the funding guidance for academic year 2022 to 2023.

We also publish guidance on the planning and delivery of study programmes.