The early National Tutoring Programme “failed” to achieve its “intended focus” on helping disadvantaged pupils catch up, a long-awaited evaluation has said.
The independent study of the £350 million first year of the NTP has been published today – nearly two years since its launch in schools.
It looked at how students eligible for pupil premium performed through the two pillars in the 2020-21 academic year – tuition partners, run by the Education Endowment Foundation and academic mentors, run by Teach First.
The programme was focused on disadvantaged pupils, but schools had discretion on who to target.
But the National Foundation for Education Research said its “limited reach” across pupil premium pupils meant benefits were “difficult to detect”.
