PRIMARY and secondary schools in North Yorkshire are looking at intervention schemes, bringing in extra teachers and organising “bolt-on” lessons to ensure catch up education for thousands of children who have missed out during the pandemic.

The county council says it is working with schools to see how they can work together to see how youngsters can make up for the lost time in schools.

The Government last week announced a £1 billion boost for extra tuition across the country to pay for support to tackle the impact of lost teaching time. A total of £650 million of the cash which is said to be a one off payment will be shared across state primary and secondary schools over the 2020/21 academic year from September.

The remaining £350 million will be used to help the most disadvantaged students get access to high-quality tuition through a National Tutoring Programme to try and prevent the gap between them and more well off youngsters and families widening.

The council says although final details of the funding is yet to be announced, headteachers in North Yorkshire are now looking at the most appropriate form of catch-up education for each individual school.

Stuart Carlton, Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services, said: "School leaders and staff are looking at how best to use the Government’s funding for catch-up education.

"There will not be a one-size-fits-all approach to this; schools will be making their decisions based on the needs of their pupils, the availability of teaching staff and other considerations. It may be they run intervention programmes, bring in extra teaching capacity or “bolt-on” lessons at the end of the traditional school day.

"The County Council and North Yorkshire’s schools are completely committed to making sure no child’s education loses out as a result of the pandemic and will be working very hard to make sure we get every pupil to where they need to be in their academic progress.

"Pupils, teachers and parents in North Yorkshire have had to adapt to some very challenging circumstances over the last few months and I would like to thank them for their work.With many parents and carers in the county now returning to work and as more lockdown measures are relaxed, independent holiday clubs and activities should be resuming where possible over summer.

"Students in Years 10 and Years 12 currently have some face-to-face teaching time in school, as they study for exams they are due to sit next year. A quarter of these year groups are in school at any one time.

"Getting children and young people back to school is of the utmost importance. We await the details from the Government so we can get on with the planning of schooling."

More information is due in the next fortnight for schools over when other year groups will be going back to school as well as how the extra cash will be distributed.