The widening academic attainment gap

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) along with the University of Exeter carried out research and found that UK pupils have lost out on a third of their learning due to the pandemic. The findings include time students spent on home lessons during lockdowns. It has long been said that it is the poorest pupils whose education has been affected the most and this research corroborates it.The research found that for pupils in England, 61 days of schooling were lost on average, when compared to the usual school year of 190 days.

At the other end of the spectrum, private schools increased the number of students achieving all grade 9s by 1.6% compared to last year, according to Ofqual. Secondary comprehensives and moderns achieved a 0.6 per cent increase of pupils being awarded top grades this year, whilst academies experienced a comparatively small rise in the proportion of pupils getting all top grades, of 0.1per cent.

Many schools are planning to be ‘Covid ready’ when they re-open in September and this includes access to supply staff in the event of teachers needing to self-isolate should infections spread. In addition, many schools are providing additional lessons via longer school days or small group lessons to catch up on lost learning. So, the high demand for additional supply teaching staff is set to continue.

Operation Education Group has been working alongside Success for All and the Fischer Family Trust to recruit tutors to facilitate a literacy programme to small groups of children from Years 1 to 4, in several Primary Schools across the UK.

The Lightning Squad Literacy programme is a blended approach with in-person tutoring supported by an online tutoring platform in the form of half-hour daily sessions working with 4 pupils at a time to improve reading skills, fluency, comprehension, spelling and phonics. Since it is an established evidence-based programme, course content is provided along with set-up, assessment and tutor to facilitate. The tutors are recruited, vetted and trained by experts in their field and will have a pre-requisite of teaching/ teaching support experience. If you are interested in becoming a tutor in these very fulfilling roles, check out our tutoring page.