Catch Up and Recovery Premiums

The government announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up lost time following school closure during the academic year 2019-2020.

This was especially important for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds. This funding included:

  • a one-off universal £650 million catch up premium for the 2020 to 2021 academic year to ensure that schools have the support they need to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time
  • a £350 million National Tutoring Programme to provide additional, targeted support for those children and young people who need the most help.

Schools used this funding for specific activities to support their pupils to catch up for lost teaching over the previous months, in line with the curriculum expectations for the next academic year in actions for schools during the coronavirus outbreak. The funding was for specific activities which will help pupils catch up on missed education. The school received £80 per pupil within school from Reception-Year 6.

Please click here for information regarding how this funding was being during 2020-2021.

For pupils in academic year 2022-2023 and 2021-2022:

The recovery premium grant is part of the government’s package of funding to support pupils whose education has been impacted by coronavirus (COVID-19).

It is a time-limited grant providing over £300m of additional funding for state-funded schools in the 2021 to 2022 academic year and £1bn across the 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 academic years.

It is focused on pupil premium eligible pupils and pupils in specialist settings such as special schools, special units and pupil referral units (PRUs). This is because of the additional impact of the pandemic on these students.

However, schools can use it to deliver evidence-based approaches for supporting any pupil based on an assessment of individual need.

Details of our recovery premium funding allocation and spending can be found in the Pupil Premium Strategy Statements from 2021-2022 and 2022-2023.