From ICT and Computing in Education, 6th May 2022

The Department for Education’s newly beefed-up National Tutoring Scheme enables schools to arrange tutoring for their students at discounted rates. It’s purely voluntary, but the DfE will be publishing data on which schools take up the offer and which ones don’t.

Apparently this is not naming and shaming, or yet another accountability measure introduced by the back door. Nay, nay, thrice nay, as Frankie Howerd was wont to say. It’s nothing of the kind, just another way to provide transparency. Well, that’s all right then.

I don’t suppose it will have occurred to the Secretary of State for Education and his minions that some schools might prefer to make their own arrangements, indeed may already have done so. Professor Bob Harrison was on the money when he tweeted:

Just give the money direct to schools who are best placed to decide which intervention is best for each pupil. Funding private tutor agencies just doesn’t work https://t.co/D44MqlE6Wu
— Professor Bob Harrison (@BobHarrisonEdu) May 3, 2022

I wrote about this “voluntary” scheme a few days ago. It’s about as voluntary as making someone an offer they can’t refuse, except that I don’t suppose any headteacher is likely to find a horse’s head in their bed.

Mind you, given how far the DfE has lost, and continues to lose, the plot, one never knows.