In 2021, almost 75% of Secondary school children in England were offered activities and catch-up opportunities, through attendance at summer schools as part of a £200m scheme supported by the Department for Education (DfE).
 
Leading educationalists and headteachers have serious concerns that the summer schemes and other elements of the Government’s current catch-up programmes are inadequate to mitigate the effects of the loss of education for millions of children since March 2020.
 
Natalie Perera, Chief Executive of the Education Policy Institute (EPI) said “In order to recover the months of lost learning experienced by pupils, we estimate that the government needs to spend closer to £2bn over the next three years on summer schools – that’s 10 times what they’ve currently committed to.” The EPI estimates that a three-year funding package worth £13.5bn will be needed to bridge the gap in learning resulting from the pandemic.

Across our four nations of the UK, spending per pupil is due to be £400 in Wales, £310 in England, and about £230 in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In stark comparison education, catch-up plans for the Netherlands (£2100 per pupil) and U.S (£1800 per pupil) are far larger and more ambitious. 

Moreover, catch-up provision is patchy. While the DfE claims that 540,000 children were registered to take part in the summer schools, some commentators maintain this was equivalent to just one in 15 state school pupils. 
 
For any intervention to be truly successful and meaningful for student’s, schools need time to plan and prepare good quality programmes. Whilst the £200 scheme was positively received by Secondary schools, the announcement of this becoming available was not made until Easter 2021. Clearly, these timescales did not allow for in-depth planning and delivery of services to maximise students’ experiences, thus not maximising participation. Done right, summer schools with an academic focus have the potential to support students to make up for some of their missed education and the Education Endowment Foundation found that, on average, students attending a summer school can make two months' additional progress.
 
We urge the government to prioritise funding and time for delivery to support summer schools as an integral part of the overall effort to recover from the disruption to learning for pupils, caused by covid-19 restrictions.
 
Please support, sign, and share this petition to enable our children to thrive.
 

C Hampton.