Our Government is at fault for the failings of the National Tutoring Programme, but schools also need to raise their game to ensure its success.
‘Just give us your f***ing money!’ Who remembers Bob Geldof, in the middle of the heat of Live Aid, shouting this at all of us watching on TV?’ Well, sometimes school leaders take a similar approach. Regardless of the problem at hand, they argue that the solution lies in giving schools additional funding, with as little ringfencing and as few strings as possible, to fix it. Cut out the middle people and any bureaucratic impediments, and all will be rosy.
Given the significant problems with the National Tutoring Programme, it’s no wonder that schools have taken this attitude toward tutoring. And it’s an argument that they have essentially won. Following a year of DfE procurement, implementation and communication failures, changes to the tutoring programme have given schools far more autonomy and far fewer constraints, bureaucratic or otherwise.
