While the NTP was initially conceived as a multi-year catch-up programme to address learning loss due to school closures during the pandemic, the Department for Education also expressed an objective of creating a lasting legacy in which schools provide 1-to-1 and small group tuition to their pupils beyond the four funded years.

The provision of tuition to disadvantaged pupils has long been proposed by the Sutton Trust, who describe tuition as the “hidden secret of British education” within an educational “arms race” that perpetuates advantage. With this in mind, to close the disadvantage gap, tuition must be made available to all pupils who could benefit, whether through the NTP or the effective use of Pupil Premium funding in the years that follow.

The original design of the NTP aimed to achieve just that, with a “parachuting” subsidy level that allowed schools to gradually become more comfortable with allocating finances to external tuition.

Original plan:

NTP year 1: 70% subsidy

NTP year 2: 65% subsidy

NTP year 3: 50% subsidy

NTP year 4: 25% subsidy

However, the retendering of the NTP administration from EEF in year 1 to Randstad in year 2, along with the subsequent confusion and poor execution that led to Randstad’s contract dismissal, has resulted in the DfE revising the amount subsidised to encourage schools to rejoin the programme:

Revised plan:

NTP year 1: 70% subsidy

NTP year 2: 65% subsidy

NTP year 3: 60% subsidy

NTP year 4: 50% subsidy*

*Did you spot that pesky asterisk? Indeed, it may seem at first that the funding for 2023/24 has been doubled. However, it’s important to point out that while NTP years 1-3 provided sufficient funding for schools to deliver a 15-hour tuition program for all of their pupil premium (PP) pupils (assuming an average rate of £18 per pupil per hour)✝, in NTP year 4, the funding will only cover half of a school’s PP pupils. Yes, the DfE is providing twice as much for half the number of pupils, so the actual amount paid to the school remains unchanged.

✝Now an obelisk? Yes, but this time it’s a good one. For 2023/24, 3-to-1 tuition with Manning’s will cost £46 per hour, which translates to £15.33 per pupil per hour. This means your funding can be used to support far more deserving pupils.

Worked example:

Example Academy has 300 Pupil Premium pupils. 

For 2023/24, the school will be provided with £20,250, ringfenced to cover 50% of the cost of tuition. 

Example Academy will need to match this funding with £20,250‡ from their own budget, giving a total of £40,500 available to deliver tuition. 

We’ve given a few examples of how this could be utilised below:

‡A double dagger?  Yes… we wanted to point out that schools that utilised all of their NTP funding in the 22/23 year will already have made room in their budget for more than this to put towards tuition, and they’re obviously welcome to continue to do so in 23/24.  There’s no maximum that can be invested in tuition in your school.

For the case study above, if Example Academy had utilised all of their 22/23 funding, then the cost to the school of tuition during NTP year 3 would have been £32,400.  Should they choose to continue to invest this in tuition, this would provide a total budget of £52,650, which could be deployed as below:

In order to view your exact funding allocation for 23/24 please visit this link. 

To find out more, and for the opportunity to get all your questions answered, please pop along to our free webinar on Friday 14th July @ 4pm.  Sign up here.