29th July 2021

Education Policy Institute comments on new government figures on summer school take up

Today , the Department for Education (DfE) has released new data on how many schools have signed up to summer schools over the holidays.

 

Commenting on the summer school figures, Natalie Perera, Chief Executive of the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said:

“The government’s overall education recovery package of £3.1bn fails to match the scale of lost learning and is unlikely to be enough to help children to catch up with their education and support their wellbeing. Our research has shown that a three-year funding package totalling £13.5bn will be required to reverse the damage to pupils’ learning as a result of the pandemic.

“Summer schools are a vital part of the education recovery process, but the government’s programme is limited as it is only targeted at a small subset of pupils. Supporting those pupils transitioning into Year 7 is important, but we need to see summer schools open to pupils in all year groups, including those in primary schools. In order to recover the months of lost learning experienced by pupils, we estimate that the government needs to spend closer to £2bn over the next three years on summer schools  that’s 10 times what they’ve currently committed to.”

 

Ends.