Dear Mr Williamson,
We welcome the recent commitments from your Department to support disadvantaged young people during this unprecedented time and are grateful for the efforts of your officials to consider the impact this crisis is having on them.
Whilst the priority right now must be safety, we must acknowledge the extent to which this crisis has entrenched existing gaps in education, whilst introducing new inequalities. Research recently undertaken by the Sutton Trust states that parents from wealthier families are more likely to spend money on their children’s learning since the lockdown. (1) Students in private schools are twice as likely to use online lessons every day than students in state schools. Parents with degrees and postgraduate qualifications say they feel more confident directing their children’s learning during this time than those without. As challenging as quality home education is for all parents, it is undoubtedly even harder for some parents, particularly those working hard on the frontline to keep our country going.
We write to you as an alliance of organisations who are increasingly concerned that this crisis will leave a generation of young people behind. Every single day that children and young people in poorer families spend outside of school or college, they are at risk of falling behind their peers. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that during the lockdown to date, students in the best-off families will have done more than 7 full days’ worth of extra learning than those in the poorest families. (2) For those children and young people who do not go back until September, this gap will double.
For many, the gap in education means they will find it harder to secure key qualifications. This will have far-reaching consequences for their life chances, including the increased risk of being not in education, employment or training at 18. Regardless of whether they are invited to return to school or college before the autumn, each of these students will have lost between 200 and 400 hours of education by then. Not only could this have long-lasting consequences for these students individually, but it also presents a heavy cost to our country as a whole, which could lose out on the talents of so many young people, if this lost learning is never addressed.
There is a proven solution to this. We know that one-to-one or small-group tuition has been shown to help children make great educational gains in the shortest amount of time. The Education Endowment Foundation has found that 6 to 12 weeks of catch-up tuition can add up to six months’ additional progress – and effects are particularly positive for students from poorer families. (3) That’s why we are
calling on you to introduce a National Tutoring Service to make up these lost hours for students most at risk of falling behind. We are calling for every school and college in the country to receive additional funding to help them secure extra hours of tuition for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. A National Tutoring Service would enable schools and colleges to make up for lost learning, rapidly address gaps in education, and help get the most at-risk students back on track. Additional funding would also help education settings to secure much needed pastoral support for vulnerable students, who may be struggling with the social and emotional impact of lockdown on their lives.
We all believe in a society where our children and young people get the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Now, more than ever, those from poorer backgrounds have the odds stacked against them. We want to change this. Your Department has the power to make this possible.
Yours sincerely, Dr Vanessa Ogden, Chair, Fair Education Alliance
Dame Julia Cleverdon, Vice-Chair, Fair Education Alliance
Sam Butters and Gina Cicerone, co-CEOs, Fair Education Alliance
Robert Halfon MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee
Lee Elliott Major, Professor of Social Mobility, University of Exeter
Sir Richard Lambert, Former Chair of the Fair Education Alliance
Russell Hobby, CEO, Teach First
Brett Wigdortz OBE, CEO, tiney.co
Henri Murison, Director, Northern Powerhouse Partnership
Nick Wright, Managing Director, UBS
Sarah Payne, Executive Director, UBS
Mark Mansell, Partner, Co-Head of Corporate Responsibility, Allen & Overy
Rachel Hopcroft CBE, Partner, Head of Corporate Affairs, KPMG
Sam Freedman, CEO, Education Partnerships Group
Sarah Atkinson, Chief Executive, The Social Mobility Foundation
Sonia Blandford, CEO, Achievement for All
Susannah Hardyman, CEO, Action Tutoring
Jude Williams, CEO, Literacy Pirates
Sarah Waite, CEO, Get Further
Adam Alagiah-Glomseth, CEO, TalentEd
Paul Singh, CEO, Equal Education
Nick Bent and Abigail Shapiro, Co-Founders, The Tutor Trust
Nathan Sansom, CEO, The Access Project
Dominic Baker, CEO, Future Frontiers
Kitty Higgins, CEO, Bookmark Reading Charity
David Walker, CEO, Team Up
Freya Rowland, Head of Programmes, Team Up
Robin Chu, CEO, CoachBright
Jennifer Love, Head of West Midlands, CoachBright
Joel Davis, CEO, Tutors United
Alina Monaghan-Gibson, Head of Programmes, Tutors United
Greer Mulcahey Banks, Senior Programme Officer, Tutors United
Olivia Meade, Programme Officer, Tutors United
Alex Talbott, Programme Manager, The Orwell Youth Prize
Georgia Brown, Head of Programmes, Franklin Scholars
Anthony Harmer, Chief Executive, ELATT
Oran Blackwood, ELATT
Amelia Foster, CEO, SAPERE
Sarah Faber, Head of Ventures, The Young Foundation
Justin Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Future First
Julie Randles, CEO, Power2
Jasper Kain, Co-Founder, Football Beyond Borders
Jack Reynolds, Co-Founder and Director, Football Beyond Borders
Jaine Stannard, Chief Executive, School Home Support (SHS)
Clare Summers, Development Lead, Teach First
Shar Stead, Development Lead, Training Programme, Teach First
Jessica Schouela, Prospect Research & Insight Officer - Fundraising, Teach First
Emily Evans, Chief Executive, The Economist Educational Foundation
Olivia Platman, Senior School relationships Manager, The Economist Educational Foundation
Rachael Saunders, Education Director, Business in the Community
Emma Bell, Executive Director - International, Innovations for Learning
Helen ODonnell, CEO, Children’s University
Emma Sullivan, Co-Founder & CEO, Prospela
Dr Sam Holmes, CEO, Causeway Education
Naomi Kellmam, Senior Manager - Schools and Universities, Rare
Dr Dwain A. Neil OBE, FRSA, Chairman, Reach Society
Bertina Ho, Program Manager, Universify Education
Alex Whitton, Charity Manager, Universify Education
Dr Rachel Carr, OBE, Chief Executive and Co-Founder, IntoUniversity
Sarah Sewell, CEO, Yes Futures
Juliana Mohamad Noor, Vice President Further Education, NUS
Cornelia Lucey, Co-founder, LIVEWISE
Joel Balkwill, CEO, Spiral Skills
Mike Ellicock, CEO, National Numeracy
Stella Thebridge, Chair, The Association of Senior Children's and Education Librarians (ASCEL)
Margaret McCabe, CEO, Debate Mate
Natalie Moore, Chief Operating Officer, Apps for Good
Jason Elsom, Chief Executive Officer, Speakers for Schools
Jack Carter, Education Network Developer, Transforming Lives for Good
Chris Allbut, Director of Programmes, The Greenhouse Centre
Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa, CEO, Career Ready
Chris White, Co-Founder, Zing
Sarah Darton, Chief Executive, Family Links the Centre for Emotional Health
Murray Morrison, Founder and CEO, Tassomai
John Craven, CEO, upReach
Brian Mair, Co-founder/ Director of Operations, Nudge Education
Fay Lant, Senior Programme Manager, National Literacy Trust
Stephanie Lee, Head of Widening Participation & Outreach, The University of Manchester
David Duke MBE, CEO, Street Soccer Scotland
Ed Hicks, Managing Director, PAM Insights
Kendra Walsh, Director, Expert Impact
Jason Ashley, Headteacher, Redbridge Community School
Emil Bender Lassen, Co-founder & CEO, Project Access International
Evie Keough, CEO & Founder, Boromi
Paulina Olsson, Co-Founder & CEO, Peppy Pals
Katie Booth, Director of Programmes, AccessED
Layton Tamberlin, Partner, Sullivan Street
Ginny Lunn, Managing Director, Coram Beanstalk
Louisa Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer, West London Zone
Stephen Batchelor, KaMCOP Project Manager, Kent and Medway Progression Federation
Ali Henderson, Chief Executive, Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation
1 The Sutton Trust (2020), ‘COVID-19 IMPACTS: SCHOOL SHUTDOWN’
2 Institute for Fiscal Studies (2020), ‘Learning during the lockdown: real-time data on children’s experiences during home learning’
3 The Education Endowment Foundation (2018), ‘One to one tuition’ and ‘Small group tuition’