I have seen this question asked a number of times, and my resounding answer is always yes! We beg the government for funding all of time and when they offer some we need to take it with both hands. I know it is extremely frustrating when they put ridiculous accountability with the funding so that it almost feels like the Department for Education do not want us to have it. However, if schools plan effectively, put in the work, this money can do a lot for our vulnerable children.
I am the head of one of those tiny schools who have received next to nothing - £810 to be precise. However, by topping this up with just £270 from the school budget, I can provide much more tuition and support for my vulnerable children than I would have been able to without it.
It is important to plan before you plough into the process of tutoring and paying money out. It is an extremely difficult balancing act between number of tuition hours provided and cost per tuition hour. Working with @Edroundtables, we managed to make a calculator to help you plan your provision, and this can be accessed here.
Things to think about when planning your tuition.
The DfE expect the average cost of tuition is £18 per hour. Nobody pays a tutor £18 per hour. What you have to do is average out your total costs to £18 per hour. For example, if your tutor costs you £36 per hour, you need to have groups of two children. This gives you two tuition hours at an average of £18 per hour. You could do one group of one and a group of three in two hours to provide four tuition hours at £18 per hour.
Remember, if you use your own staff you must include on-costs into your costs for tutoring. This increases the costs for you as a school, so may help with the balancing act.
Keep a running record of the provision you are providing. Amazingly, the DfE tool is actually quite useful for this. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-led-tutoring-conditions-of-grant
Make sure you fill in the information required of you at the statutory points (the census and the end of year ESFA form). If you do not complete this final form, you will have all of your funding recovered and will be limited to access in the future.
Tutoring can be provided in the school day, but it must be new. It cannot be using your TAs providing interventions.
The DfE state that research shows that packages of 15 hours are the most useful. However, you do not need to stick to 15 hours. We have decided to use 10 hours instead, as more children can be supported across the year.
If you use your own staff, make sure you follow the guidance. People without QTS must complete the NTP/Education Development Trust training course: https://nationaltutoring.org.uk/schools/school-led-tutoring/
Identify your children early. Work out what the gaps are, who works well in groups, who will work well one to one. Keep your groups small if possible - maximum of 3/4. If you make your group sizes too big, it makes the cost of your tutoring hours too cheap. For example, if you had a group of 6 children, and pay your tutor £30, this only equates to £5 per hour!
Don't panic if you haven't started yet - we haven't. Even if you record 0 children in your January census, that does not affect your funding. It is the end of year report that they DfE will use to calculate any overpayments.
Point 8 really frustrates me, as it seems as if schools are being punished for using their funding efficiently. By trying to support as many children as possible, you could be out of pocket.
If it was up to me, I would have reduced some of the accountability regarding this funding. I believe we need some accountability, as it is extra funding for a specific reasons, but breaking it down to a cost for per tutoring hour is not right. A much simpler way the DfE could have organised this was by giving schools the funding for their total number of tutoring hours. The schools would only need to record how many tutoring hours they have provided. This would then show that the money has been used for its intended purpose - even if schools managed to use it efficiently. By doing it this way, it would have reduced a lot of stress in school leaders!
I hope this helps some stressed school leaders out there!