After the guy they specifically hired to come up with a covid catch-up plan for children resigned when the government said they weren't willing to spend the amount of money needed (£15 billion) and instead only about £3 billion, they said that the focus of the catch-up would be tutoring.
They then gave the tutoring contract to a Dutch HR firm because they bid the lowest (much better bids from experienced companies were rejected). This has turned into a slow-motion car crash where schools couldn't access tutors, websites didn't work, tutors couldn't be found.
The govt have now abandoned that and said that the tutoring money (£65 million, not billions) will be given directly to schools to source and fund their own tutors instead.
However, at the same time, targets have been dropped or watered down:
Tutors used to have to be graduates or qualified teachers. Now they merely need A-levels.
Group sizes were max 3, this is now max 6 pupils.
A requirement that 65% of targeted pupils were disadvantaged pupils has been ditched.
A thread on MN about whether children were recovering education-wise discussed how academically children seem to be ok, but socially and emotionally are still affected. (As this is MN, children of MNettters are more likely to be advantaged where the data shows that it's disadvantaged children most hit educationally, so they may have a false impression of the widespread educational impact.) However, as the sole govt focus was on educational catch-up (which has now basically fizzled out), there is no extra support for helping children emotionally or socially beyond that which schools can cobble together themselves with their limited resources. That's why the advisor resigned - he wanted a full package of support for children, physically, socially and educationally, and the lack of that is now becoming obvious.
In addition, CAMHS has basically collapsed, so there is very little professional mental health support available for children, and long, long waiting lists for those who meet the incredibly high threshold for referral.
Schools have just gone through an extremely difficult term, covid-wise. There has been massive staff and pupil absence. Far from being places of covid catch-up, many schools have struggled to staff the basic timetable, and pupils have had lack of consistency with supply staff. Exam classes have been left without specialist teaching. Despite schools now being provided with funding for tutoring, the idea that in maths we could actually find any tutors is challenging. We did have some timetabled intervention, but those teachers had to be redeployed to actual teaching because of staff absence.
Why aren't the government worried that they'll get found out?
Who is measuring the social and emotional well-being of children in a way that will actually have an impact on government policy? Parents seem remarkably reluctant to hold the government to account for their failings here.
What about exam results? Well, exam grades are decided in advance by the government. We know for a fact that pupils sitting GCSEs and A-levels this summer will come out with good results overall, because this has already been decided, regardless of their actual performance in the exams. So the public will see the exam results and figure that everything must be ok in schools because the kids are doing well in their exams. It's not ok, and don't be fooled.
This government still don't give a shit about your kids, or their education.