Responding to a new report by the Public Accounts Committe on education recovery in schools in England, Paul Whiteman, general secretary for school leaders' union NAHT, said:

“The combined pressures of Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis have had a serious impact on children from already disadvantaged backgrounds. Schools are offering all the help and support they can, but the truth is that the government has not passed on the funding and resources required to make a real difference.

“Tutoring is a good example of this - it's a scheme that could really help, but schools have found themselves unable to take full advantage of it for their pupils because budgets are so tight, and they are rightly worried about what happens when the subsidy disappears. The Public Accounts Committee are correct when they say the government to not seem to fully grasp the severity of the situation in schools. That is why the profession is in dispute currently, to raise the alarm on their pupils’ behalf.

“The government has not done enough to mitigate the impact of the global events on vulnerable children over the past few years.”