Guidance

16 to 19 funding: additional hours in study programmes for 2023 to 2024

Updated 27 February 2023

Applies to England

Introduction

As part of the government’s commitment to a long-term education recovery plan, in 2021 we announced that we are investing a further £800m across 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.

As we did previously, we will allocate this funding as part of the funding bands. We have published these for academic year 2023 to 2024.

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

Important points:

We have maintained the increase in funding band hours in academic year 2023 to 2024 to account for the additional hours and we will enforce this by recovering funding where hours are not increased, resulting in students falling into lower funding bands.

We continue to 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 suggests 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

Changes for academic year 2023 to 2024

Minimising the administrative burden has been our priority in developing reporting structures for additional hours. Therefore, institutions no longer need to produce an end of year report on additional hours.

Institutions must still record all their planned hours, including additional hours in their individualised learner record (ILR) and school census returns. To note, institutions still need to complete an end of year report on additional hours for academic year 2022 to 2023.

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 institutions use additional time 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.

Institutions should record appropriate use of additional hours to support mental health and wellbeing 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.

We have added additional funding to high needs funding allocations to local authorities. This is because 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 additional hours

As confirmed, we’ve removed the need for institutions to produce an end of year report in academic year 2023 to 2024.

We will monitor and enforce the academic year 2023 to 2024 funding band hours in the usual way as set out in the relevant years funding guidance.

Where a student’s planned hours are recorded at less than the minimum in each band, they will be funded for the lower band in future allocation. As a result, we will recover funding (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, we expect institutions to maintain the average 40-hour increase across their study programmes that they introduced in academic year 2022 to 2023, even when those programmes were previously delivering above the new minimum.

We will not issue a new baseline for academic year 2023 to 2024 to institutions. The baseline issued in academic year 2022 to 2023 which is based on the average hours each individual institution delivered in academic year 2020 to 2021 will still apply. Where an institution failed to increase their average hours in academic year 2022 to 2023, we will expect them to increase them in academic year 2023 to 2024. Institutions are expected to have increased 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, where data shows less than an average 40-hour increase based on the 2020 to 2021 baseline, we will monitor compliance through our funding agreements and contracts with providers.

We aim to publish the new academic year guidance for T Levels in March 2023. There will be no change to our published guidance on how we treat additional hours in T Levels. We do not count hours delivered in T Levels towards an institution’s average hours.

Planned hours in academic year 2023 to 2024 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 2023 to 2024 allocations, we will use 2021 to 2022 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 2023 to 2024 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 we calculate their funding correctly.

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 2023 to 2024.

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