Some disturbing numbers right at the start of the NAO report on education and the early pandemic:
- 15% reduction in referrals to children's social care services April-August
- 30% time gap between high income/ low income pupils on home learning
- 36% growth in attainment gap
- 15% reduction in referrals to children's social care services April-August
- 30% time gap between high income/ low income pupils on home learning
- 36% growth in attainment gap
NAO's key findings
1) Says DfE did not develop an overarching plan to deal with the crisis til end of June. The Dept had no pre-existing plan to deal with a major emergency of national school closures, only localised ones, like flooding.
1) Says DfE did not develop an overarching plan to deal with the crisis til end of June. The Dept had no pre-existing plan to deal with a major emergency of national school closures, only localised ones, like flooding.
2) Schools risk being left severely out of pocket by the crisis. NAO says as of January DfE had paid or intended to pay schools £133m (or only 73%) of the £181m they had claimed for their Covid costs. 
DfE gave funding for 3 things: school meals, Easter/summer openings and cleaning. Within the £181m total, schools made £42m of claims outside those categories, eg for PPE, home IT and extra staff. “The Department didn’t reimburse schools for any of these other claims.”
3) Communications: anyone who has covered schools over the past year knows how frustrated teachers have been by the sheer volume of communications from DfE and when it drops, something NAO has picked up on: “schools were not always clear what changes it had made.”
4) IT: DfE concluded that providing 600k laptops/100k routers for all vulnerable children wasn’t possible due to numbers involved. So they targeted those with social worker etc only. It paid Computacenter £70m for the contract. Most didn’t reach schools til June.
As a result "many children may not have been able to access remote learning until well into the second half of the summer term."
That said NAO does say that DfE research does say "the UK delivered considerably more equipment than any of the other 19 European countries examined."
That said NAO does say that DfE research does say "the UK delivered considerably more equipment than any of the other 19 European countries examined."
5) Internet access: NAO says DfE trialled 3 schemes w/ "varying degrees of success"
a) 10,000 wifi hotspot vouchers for kids w/o internet at home: "V few of the vouchers were activated"
b) "zero rating" certain educational websites so data wasn't spent. Only happened to 2 sites.
a) 10,000 wifi hotspot vouchers for kids w/o internet at home: "V few of the vouchers were activated"
b) "zero rating" certain educational websites so data wasn't spent. Only happened to 2 sites.
c) Much more success though with mobile data. 10 operators had signed up to a scheme to provide free data as of Jan 2021.
6) NAO expresses concern that the tutoring catch up programme isn't reaching as many disadvantaged pupils as it should: "Of the 125,200 children allocated a tutoring
place, 41,100 had started to receive tuition, of whom 44% were eligible for pupil premium..."
place, 41,100 had started to receive tuition, of whom 44% were eligible for pupil premium..."
"...This raises questions over the extent to which the scheme will reach the most disadvantaged children."
Added to that NAO has concern that some schools won't be able to meet 25% of the costs they're expected to provide.
Added to that NAO has concern that some schools won't be able to meet 25% of the costs they're expected to provide.
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