This section explains the methodology for statistics relating to the National Tutoring Programme in 2022/23 Academic Year.
Overview and Data
In the 2022/23 academic year, all National Tutoring Programme (NTP) funding was given directly to schools to spend on any of the three NTP routes: School-Led Tutoring, Tuition Partners or Academic Mentors. Funding was allocated based on the number of pupil premium (PP) students in the school and covered every PP pupil.
This year, the underlying data used to publish these statistics were collected through the School Census and the Year-End Statement form. State-funded schools are required to provide the Department for Education (DfE) with a School Census return covering a wide range of information on individual pupils, including whether they received tutoring through the NTP, once every school term. All schools that received funding via the NTP were also asked to fill in the Year End Statement form.
For any statistics in the statistical release that relate to the delivery of tutoring or pupil characteristics within the academic year, data is collected through the School Census in Autumn 2022 (6th October 2022), Spring 2023 (19th January 2023), and Summer 2023 (18th May 2023). Information on pupil characteristics is updated in the spring edition of the School Census and the latest available information is merged with the latest information on the delivery of tutoring at the individual pupil level. Information on the delivery of tutoring is identified through two pupil level data items within the School Census:
- whether the pupil had received tutoring through any of the three NTP routes and
- how many cumulative hours of tutoring (to the closest 0.5 hours) the pupil had received up to the day of the census.
For any statistics relating to the delivery of tutoring across the entire 2022/23 academic year, data are based on the Year-End Statement Form 2023, which covers the school year from 1st September 2022 up to and including 31st August 2023. Year End Statement data submitted by schools up to 1st December 2023 was used for the statistics published in December 2023. DfE plans to revise the statistics in April 2024 to include data that may have been revised by then.
The statistics provide an indication of the delivery of the programme based on data provided by schools. Caution should be used if drawing comparisons between statistics within the academic year and for the entire academic year due to the use of different data sources and methodologies. Please see below for further information on the respective data inputs and methodologies.
For variables in this publication, rounding (for example, adjusting a value to the nearest whole number) takes place as the final step in calculating the statistics. Therefore, the sum of statistics across categories may not match (for example, the sum of courses in each Local Authority may not match the total number of courses for England).
Starts on courses by pupils, 2022/23 in-year
Within the academic year, pupil level data from the School Census is used to estimate the number of courses started. We identify the number of courses started by each pupil based on the number of hours of tutoring received by each pupil. If an individual pupil received up to 16 hours of tutoring, we consider them to have started one course, above this we consider them to have started two courses. This is in line with NTP guidance to schools suggesting a course should be between 12 and 15 hours, with an additional margin of one hour above 15 hours to help count marginal cases appropriately. The number of courses is then aggregated across pupils to the school level.
Not all courses delivered to pupils were 15 hours long. Individual pupils may undertake more than one course. The School Census provides data on whether a pupil is in receipt of tutoring and the number of hours of tutoring per pupil. The School Census does not record how many courses a pupil has received. A pupil may have started multiple courses, for example they may have received 8 hours of tutoring in total consisting of 4 hours of tutoring in two separate courses for different academic subjects. As a result, the statistics estimate that ‘at least’ a given number of courses have started during the academic year.
We have removed a small number of pupils as they had received less than half an hour of tutoring, as this is not considered to be enough to include as a course start.
A small number of schools who had reported delivering more than three times their allocated pupils or hours were also identified in the data. The number of courses started in these schools was replaced based on the school’s funding allocation relative to the national average of tutoring delivered for all other schools that were not identified as outliers.
Within the academic year it is possible that a pupil may be part way through a tutoring course, so statistics on courses delivered are not provided.
Courses delivered, 2022/23 entire academic year
For the entire academic year, school level data from the Year End Statement is used to estimate the number of courses delivered. To estimate the number of courses delivered we identify the number of hours that a school has reported delivering and the number of pupils that the school has reported as receiving tutoring. We then estimate the number of hours per pupil by dividing reported hours by reported pupils. Next, we estimate the number of courses per pupil that received tutoring as follows: if the average hours per pupil within the school was less than 16 hours we consider that each of those pupils that received tutoring have started one course, if it was between 16 and 31 hours then we consider each of those pupils has started two courses, and so on with increments of 15 hours. This is in line with NTP guidance to schools that suggests a course should be between 12 and 15 hours, with an additional margin of one hour to help count marginal cases appropriately.
Not all courses delivered to pupils were 15 hours long. Individual pupils may undertake more than one course.
A small number of schools who had reported delivering more than five times their allocated pupils or hours were identified as outliers in the data. The number of courses in these schools were instead replaced based on the school’s funding allocation relative to the national average of tutoring delivered for all other schools that were not identified as outliers.
The value at school level is then aggregated across school phase, local authority, region or England as required. The number is then rounded to the nearest whole number.
Courses delivered, since start of programme up to and including 2022/23
To estimate the number of courses that have been delivered across the entire National Tutoring Programme between November 2020 and the end of the 2022/23 academic year, we add the estimated courses delivered across the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years.
Hours delivered, 2022/23 entire academic year
For the entire academic year, school level data from the Year End Statement is used to estimate the number of hours delivered. Schools report the number of hours of tutoring that they have delivered.
A small number of schools who had reported delivering more than five times their allocated pupils or hours were also identified in the data before statistics were produced. The number of courses in these schools were instead replaced based on the school’s allocation relative to the national average of tutoring delivered for all other schools that were not identified as outliers.
This is aggregated across school phase, local authority, region or England as required. The number is then rounded to the nearest whole number.
Number of pupils, 2022/23 entire academic year
For the entire academic year, school level data from the Year End Statement is used to estimate the number of pupils that have received tutoring. Schools report the number of pupils that received tutoring.
A small number of schools who had reported delivering more than five times their allocated pupils or hours were also identified as outliers in the data before statistics were produced. The number of courses in these schools were instead replaced based on the school’s allocation relative to the national average of tutoring delivered for all other schools that were not identified as outliers.
This is aggregated across school phase, local authority, region or England as required. The number is then rounded to the nearest whole number.
Average hours of tutoring delivered to pupils per course, 2022/23 entire academic year
For the entire academic year, school level data from the Year End Statement is used to estimate the average hours of tutoring delivered to pupils per course.
To estimate this we identify the number of hours, and estimate the number of courses delivered (see above) after correcting for outliers (see above). These totals are calculated across the relevant geographical area – for example, to estimate average hours of tutoring delivered to pupils per course for each local authority we estimate the total number of hours and number of courses delivered for each local authority. We then divide total number of hours for the relevant geographical area by the number of courses delivered. The number is then rounded to the nearest decimal place.
As the methodology for the number of courses delivered assumes a maximum length of 16 hours per course this is likely to represent an underestimate of the average course length.
School Participation, 2022/23 in-year
For in-year estimates, a school is identified as participating if it has reported that a pupil has received tutoring through the National Tutoring Programme in data collected through the school census. Schools with the number of pupils or hours that are over three times greater than their allocation are considered to be outliers and are not included as participating schools.
The percentage of school participation is estimated by dividing the total number of participating schools in that category (for example at a local authority level) by the total number of schools in that category with pupils between the ages of 5 and 16 (see ‘Other Notes’ for definition of a school). The school participation rate is then rounded to the nearest one decimal place.
Funding allocations for schools in 2022/23 are published here. It is important to note that a small number of the schools (less than 1%) have been given no funding for the NTP, however we have kept these schools in the denominator to facilitate comparison to NTP figures from previous years when these schools would have been eligible for NTP funding. The total number of schools can change through time, for example as schools open and close.
School Participation, 2022/23 entire year
For entire year estimates, a school is identified as participating in the NTP if a school reported that they delivered tutoring through the NTP in the Year End Statement form, they were allocated funding through the NTP and they weren’t identified as an outlier for other year-end variables (see above).
The percentage of school participation is estimated by dividing the total number of schools identified as participating in the NTP within a particular category (for example, at a local authority level) by the total number of schools in that category with pupils between the ages of 5 and 16 (see ‘Other Notes’ for definition of a school). The school participation rate is then rounded to the nearest one decimal place.
Allocations for schools in 2022/23 is published here. It is important to note that a small number of these schools (<1%) have been given no funding for NTP, however we have kept these schools in the denominator to facilitate comparison to NTP figures from previous years when these schools would have been eligible for Tuition Partners funding (caution should be used when comparing statistics for different time periods as data sources and methodology may differ).
Pupil Characteristics, 2022/23 in-year
Some pupil characteristics variables are only updated once a year in the spring census while others are collected every term. These pupil characteristic variables are held in the Department for Education’s Pupil Database Repository (PDR). There is a lag of several months between the closure of the spring census and the variables in the census being matched and updated to the PDR.
The statistics included in the December 2023 publication use the latest pupil characteristics data available for each variable and data on the delivery of tutoring to individual pupils based on the Summer 2023 School Census (18th May 2023). This data was used to identify the number and proportion of pupils tutored through the NTP by each characteristic.
At pupil level, pupils with less than half an hour of tutoring recorded were considered to be outliers and are not identified as receiving tutoring for the purpose of this analysis. The number of pupils receiving tutoring with each characteristic was aggregated to the school level.
The percentage of tutoring provided to each pupil group is calculated as the number of pupils identified as receiving tutoring with a particular characteristic divided by the total number of of pupils receiving tutoring. Percentages are then rounded to the nearest one decimal place.
Please refer to the School census 2022 to 2023 business and technical specification publication for full details of the variables used to identify pupil characteristic definitions. In summary:
- Eligibility for free school meals (FSM) during the previous six years: at each census the school records whether a pupil is in receipt of free school meals on the day of the census. Pupil records across census are matched after the spring census each year to create a longitudinal record of FSM eligibility over six years.
- Gender: is self-declared by a parent/guardian or the pupil and is recorded as either female or male.
- Special Educational Needs Provision: this is recorded by the school and includes pupils with special educational needs support or those with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans.
- Ethnicity: is self-declared by a parent/guardian or the pupil. The specific ethnicities collected in the census are grouped into six major groups: Any Other Ethnic Group, Asian, Black, Mixed, Unclassified and White. The unclassified group includes pupils where the information was not returned to the school or where the information was refused.
The number of pupils in statistics for pupil characteristics will not match the number of pupils in receipt of tutoring for the entire 2022/23 academic year. This is because they are created from different sources of information, and the School Census covers a shorter time period (up to May) than the Year-End Statement data used to estimate pupil numbers (up to August).