The UK government is considering a number of measures to help children and young people catch up on lost school time, having set aside £1.3bn of funding for the programme which will be unveiled later this month.
The plans come as figures show some students in England will have spent only 60 days in college in nearly a year by March. Colleges closed to most students from March 20 to September last year.
BBC News suggests five measures that could be used to help students, including summer schools. Led by qualified teachers supervising small groups, summer schools could help students make up to four months of academic progress, according to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF).
The government's education catch-up tsar, Sir Kevan Collins, believes that the idea of summer schools has "promise". However, the EEF’s chief executive, Becky Francis, says that burnout among teachers could prove a challenge when it comes to staffing schools over the summer.
Meanwhile, the EEF points to research which suggests many disadvantaged pupils, who will be most in need of opportunities to catch up, may not take up the offer of study during the summer months.
One-to-one tuition is another proven method of helping students catch up, with weekly sessions helping students make up six months of academic progress, according to studies.
The government has already set aside £350m of funding for the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) in England. More than 100,000 disadvantaged pupils have accessed the service since it began last November.
Other measures which could be put forward as part of the catch-up programme include asking students to repeat the academic year. But the Association of School and College Leaders says the idea would only suit a small number of students.
The school day could also be extended, with Robert Halfon, who chairs the Education Select Committee, suggesting that this could be provided by “civil society instead of teachers".
What do you think of these proposals? Can you see any of them working?
Originally published on Eteach.
