Guidance

Education recovery: guidance for governors and trustees

Updated 13 April 2022

Applies to England

Overview

This guidance provides information for school governors and academy trustees about the programmes and activities the Department for Education (DfE) is funding to support education recovery and children and young people’s wellbeing. More information can be found in the Education recovery support guidance.

This guidance is intended to support governors and trustees to have effective discussions about education recovery plans within their school or trust. The governing board is the decision-making body of the school or academy trust, accountable and responsible for the school or academies in the trust. It is therefore vital that governors and trustees play an active role in providing support and challenge as schools and trusts continue to deliver education and help pupils recover from the impact of COVID-19.

It offers some suggested questions that governors and trustees may wish to ask school and trust leaders and gives an overview of the support available to schools. For further information on the roles and responsibilities of governors and trustees see the structures and roles descriptors documents and the Governance handbook.

Suggested questions to ask school and trust leaders

Overall education recovery plans

• what is the school or trust’s assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on pupils’ progress, attainment and wellbeing?
• how is the school or trust planning to access and use additional funding provided as part of the government’s education recovery support package?
• how will this impact educational outcomes? How is the board monitoring activity and impact across groups?
• do school leaders have credible plans for addressing underperformance or less than expected progress?

Recovery premium

• has the EEF’s (Education Endowment Foundation) pupil premium guide and the department’s guidance on recovery premium funding and effective use of pupil premium been used to determine how to use pupil premium and recovery premium to support disadvantaged pupils?
• how has the school or trust diagnosed individual pupil’s needs, for use of pupil premium and recovery premium, and has it referred to a range of the best evidence, such as that in the EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit?
• what is the school’s rationale for the breakdown of pupil premium and recovery premium spending across the three EEF tiers of teaching, targeted academic support and wider strategies?
• has the school or trust (for each academy) published an updated strategy for use of pupil premium and recovery premium using the mandatory DfE template?

Tutoring in schools

• how is school-led tutoring funding being used to allow pupils to access appropriate tutoring support? Does it meet the conditions of funding?
• is the school or trust accessing subsidised tuition through the Tuition Partners?
• is the school eligible for an Academic Mentor, available through the National Tutoring Programme and, if so, has the school engaged one?
• how is the school identifying which pupils will most benefit from tutoring support?
• how is the board monitoring the impact of tutoring on pupils?

16 to 19 tuition

Has the school opted in to receive tuition funding for 16-19 students? If so:

• how has the school identified which pupils to prioritise for support through the tuition fund? How is the fund being used to support them?
• has the school produced a statement explaining how they will use this funding, in line with DfE 16 to 19 funding: 16 to 19 tuition fund guidance and has this been published along with a copy of the opt in form?

Additional learning hours for students aged 16 to 19

• has the school considered how they plan to introduce the additional hours for each student aged 16 to 19 years of age from the start of the 2022 to 2023 academic year?
• how will the school monitor and report the use of this new funding as part of accountability arrangements?
• how will students with high needs be supported through these additional hours?

Non-academic support

• how will pupil wellbeing be considered as part of the school or trust’s plans for recovery?
• is the school accessing non-academic support, for example, funding for senior mental health leads training and funded support through the wellbeing for education recovery programme?
• how will the school or trust ensure that behaviour management and exclusions are sensitive to the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people and do not disproportionately affect particular groups, such as those with SEND, in receipt of Free School Meals or from ethnic minority backgrounds?
• how will the school engage families and local communities as part of education recovery?

Support for teaching staff

• how many staff are taking, or planning to take up, CPD activity in the coming year through the extended roll-out of the early career framework (ECF), the refreshed national professional qualifications (NPQ) or training for early years staff, including the early years professional development programme?
• how does the school or trust plan to ensure that staff wellbeing and workload is both reasonable and manageable?

Education recovery support available

Given the disruption to pupils’ education over the course of the pandemic, recovery programmes will support children and young people to catch up, especially disadvantaged and vulnerable children and those with the least time left in education. A wide range of support is available to early years settings, schools and 16 to 19 providers to support children and young people to make up for learning lost during the pandemic. For more detailed information see the education recovery support page.

Recovery programmes have been designed to allow flexibility to support those pupils most in need, including those who may be disadvantaged, vulnerable and/or have special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), who attend both mainstream and specialist settings. Governors should consider how groups of pupils most in need of help, are being supported in their recovery.

Available programmes and funding:

Recovery premium

Funding for schools to deliver evidence-based approaches to support the most disadvantaged pupils. For academic year 2021 to 2022 the per pupil rate will be: £145 for mainstream schools and £290 for special schools (including special units in mainstream schools), alternative provision and hospital schools. See recovery premium funding for eligibility, how to use the fund and payment schedule.

An additional £1 billion of funding has been announced to extend the recovery premium over the next two academic years (2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024). More details, including rates, will be published in due course.

National tutoring programme (NTP)

Provides 3 subsidised tutoring options to state-funded schools and academy trusts in England for the 2021 to 2022 academic year:

• school-led tutoring
• tuition partners
• academic mentors

This academic year the programme intends to offer access to up to 2 million high quality tutoring courses.

Eligible state-funded schools will receive a ring-fenced grant for school-led tutoring, to source their own tutoring provision for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils. Further information on funding for school-led tutoring can be found in School-led tutoring: conditions of grant.

On 31 March 2022 we announced that all tutoring funding will be allocated directly to schools next year. This will simplify the system and give schools the freedom to decide how best to provide tuition for their children, which could include one on one or small group tutoring through teachers or teaching assistants and continuing to work with external tutoring specialists and academic mentors.

Further information on the Tuition Partner and Academic Mentor elements of the programme, and how schools can access them, can be found on the NTP website.

Accelerator fund

Funding to scale up proven approaches to reduce the attainment gap. Programmes will be delivered through maths and English hubs and the EEF.

Continuous professional development (CPD) support for teachers:

Funding has been made available to provide up to 500,000 training opportunities, available for teachers at any stage of their career and incudes:

• Early Career Framework (ECF) reforms, which provide a funded entitlement to a 2 year package of high quality CPD available to all new teachers
• National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) fully funded NPQ are now available for all teachers and leaders employed in state-funded schools, as well as those employed in state-funded organisations that offer 16 to 19 places in England

Wellbeing and socialisation

A range of support is available to improve mental health and wellbeing in schools and colleges. This includes:

• guidance on whole school and college approaches to mental health and wellbeing
• funding for senior mental health leads training
• funded support through the wellbeing for education recovery programme

Early years

A range of programmes are also available specifically for early years (EY) providers, including:

• new training for EY staff, with the first offer available from 2022 to 2023 financial year
• EY Professional Development programme to support staff in pre-reception settings to work with children who are most at risk of falling behind
• Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI)

16 to 19 education

Initiatives available to support students in 16 to 19 education, include:

• 16 to 19 tuition fund
• repeat year for students due to complete their 16 to 19 education. Students in year 13 (or equivalent) were able to repeat up to one more year in the 2021 to 2022 academic year, if particularly severely affected by the pandemic
• additional teaching and learning hours (from September 2022)