I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this debate and on his excellent speech. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), with whom I agree about the impact of school closures. The biggest challenge facing our children is recovering from the pandemic. In the context of this debate, we are talking about lost learning in reading, writing and maths. My right hon. Friend has already spoken about the number of months—six, seven or eight—that some children are behind, but of course our children face a much wider issue, as they have lost social development and confidence, with many struggling with anxiety placed on them by adults over the course of the pandemic. These children have been forced to spend so much time online—six or seven hours a day—often unaccompanied, as they are doing work. Understandably, we have seen a rise in online harms and serious situations for many of our children. So there are huge challenges for our children at this point.
There are serious issues with Randstad, as we have heard on the Education Committee. The Government urgently need to reassess its ability to deliver the NTP, because if this is going to be our flagship programme and we are relying on it to deliver results on catching children up on academic education, we have to be sure that it is working and it is money well spent, and that in four or five years’ time we can look back and see that it has achieved results.
We also need to consider the fact that some schools would prefer to have their catch-up funding as a lump sum so that they can decide how best to spend it. They know what their children need most, and many will have more pressing concerns than academic catch-up, as we know from the evidence to the Select Committee about the wellbeing and mental health issues that many children face. There is some great practice out there. For example, Horizon Community College in Barnsley in my constituency appeared on the local news last week. It has set up a wellbeing centre and invited the charity Mind into the school. Children can drop into the wellbeing centre at any point; it is having a huge impact on the mental health of children at the school and they very much welcome it. There are some great examples of good practice out there, although it tends to be found among the bigger schools, which have bigger budgets so can be more flexible. Nevertheless, it is definitely something to learn from.
It is, of course, too soon to tell whether the national tutoring programme is working—it needs to run for longer—but evaluation is key and we have to find a way to assess it over time and, obviously, to make sure it works to start with. If the outcomes are good, I would like to see tutoring become an established part of our education system. It provides a brilliant opportunity to level up. There will of course be an element of trial and error to start with, but if we find a way to make it work, particularly for our most disadvantaged children but perhaps for those who show the most academic promise as well as those who are struggling, it could become a key part of our education strategy, so I very much welcome it .