Charity, overseen by some of the best-connected people in education, already advertising for staff to work on DfE-funded National Tutoring Programme

A well-connected charity appears to be so confident of being funded by the government to provide “catch-up” tutoring for disadvantaged pupils that it is already advertising for people to work on the scheme.

The Brilliant Club, which for eight years has been providing PhD researchers to work in schools in a bid to increase the number of disadvantaged pupils going on to leading universities, is seeking to broaden its work by getting involved in the government’s National Tutoring Programme.

Announced in the summer by the Prime Minister, this is a £350 million scheme which aims to provide small group tuition to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds during this academic year, with the aim of narrowing attainment gaps which may have grown during the coronavirus crisis. It is overseen by the Education Endowment Foundation.

The Brilliant Club’s advert says it is seeking to employ “up to 12” people to work as “programme officers”, on £30,073 a year, as part of its involvement in the National Tutoring Programme, which is to be called the “Brilliant Tutoring Programme”.

All of which might seem unremarkable. Except that the identity of the organisations which are to be funded by the scheme have yet to be announced. Indeed, on the website which has been set up to provide detail on this National Tutoring Programme offer, it is stated that the “list of approved tuition partners” will not be unveiled until October 31^st. 

Yet the deadline for application entries for the Brilliant Club’s positions is this coming Monday, October 19^th, at 9am.

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) website adds that “we will start announcing the list of approved partners from the end of October…an organisation can only publicise their success in securing funding once the NTP announce this on their website.”

Sceptics might see the job advert itself as implicitly viewing the funding as a foregone conclusion. It states, without indicating any funding success, that the charity is “planning” to take part in the National Tutoring Programme, and that it has submitted an application. But it nevertheless announces that it is seeking to recruit at this stage.

The advert states: “The Brilliant Club is planning to be a provider for the National Tutoring Programme to support the national catch up effort in England following school closures in response to Covid-19.

“We have submitted a bid to the Education Endowment Fund to run the Brilliant Training Programme (BTP). If successful, the Brilliant Club is looking to recruit up to 12 dynamic and driven individuals as BTP Programme Officers.”

The advert continues in a vein suggesting there is no doubt that the work will go ahead. The successful applicants “will manage clusters of placements, working with teachers to arrange programme logistics, and managing a team of PhD tutors to deliver curriculum focused content courses in schools”.

The positions are offered for the course of this academic year, “on a fixed term ending July 2021”, which matches the length of the government’s scheme.

The NTP website does say that “we expect draft terms and conditions to be available by mid-October for shortlisted applicants,” seemingly meaning organisations which have bid to take part. So it is possible that the advert was placed with this knowledge. Education Uncovered was told of this advert on Tuesday, October 13^th, though this was only six days before the closing date and it is possible it was online before then.

Brilliant Club trustees

The government has been under sustained scrutiny for handing contracts to its close associates during the pandemic. This contract could add to that, given its list of trustees.

Matthew Hood may leap out as the most noteworthy for Education Uncovered readers, given that he presides over Oak National Academy, the online learning initiative which has been funded to the tune of nearly £5 million by the DfE, despite a rival offer from the Council  for Subject Associations.

Hood has actually been involved in the Brilliant Club since its inception in 2012, his name appearing as one of five directors on its articles of association, in his position at the time as a “Regional Director, Teach First North East”. Hood was made an OBE in last weekend’s Queen’s Birthday honours list.

Also prominent as a Brilliant Club trustee is Dominic Herrington, who oversees the academies system for the DfE as National Schools Commissioner. Herrington joined the Brilliant Club’s board only last month, according to Companies House.

Another trustee – much more long-standing, this time – is James Turner, vice-chair and chief executive officer of the Sutton Trust.

The Sutton Trust is described as one of the organisations which “collaborated” to create the National Tutoring Programme. The Education Endowment Foundation itself was established by the Sutton Trust in 2011, following a £125 million grant from the DfE.

Previous Brilliant Club trustees have included Sam Freedman, who was an adviser to Michael Gove during the latter’s time as Education Secretary before moving to Teach First and now Ark - another charity established by financiers – and Russell Hobby, the former general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers who is now chief executive at Teach First.

The work of the Brilliant Club seems worthwhile. Supporters might point out that it has also, it seems, at least gone through a formal application process for this funding, which of course was not the case with respect to Oak.

But these endless connections in and around government policymaking and funding will continue to draw attention.

The Brilliant Club has been approached for comment.

Six-figure pay for Harris primary head?

Is England’s second-largest academy chain paying some of its primary headteachers £100,000 a year?

The question poses itself after Education Uncovered was told of a headteacher working at an outer London school within the Harris chain who was said to be on that amount, as of last calendar year.

This would be remarkable, given that pay scales set out in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) make such a sum almost impossible to earn in the non-academy sector.

With normal headteacher pay ranges in the maintained sector calculated according to the age of the school’s pupils, their number and where it is located, it would be almost impossible for a primary school non-academy head to be paid £100,000 – at least under the normal application of the pay scales* - as far as I can see. (A primary would need more than 1,000 pupils for the head to qualify normally for that remuneration).

In fact, a headteacher working at a primary school of the same size and location as this Harris academy would be remunerated in the range £54,401 to £72,813, the STPCD for 2018-19 – the year to which this alleged £100,000 pay relates – shows.

So…is this anecdote likely to be correct? Well, Harris had at least 31 people paid at least £100,000 in 2018-19, its latest accounts show. The chain does have 49 schools and central staff must be among its most well-remunerated people paid six figures or more. So, clearly, not all of its schools’ heads will be on £100k-plus.

But it may be possible that one or more of its primary heads are on six figures.

If true, this looks like a huge premium to be paying the leader of a primary school on the basis of it being an academy, rather than a local authority school. A source said it made it very difficult for their local authority primary to compete on wages. So there is public interest in knowing if this disparity exists.

Sadly, however, it seems impossible to know for sure, as the DfE, while calling for more transparency for local authority school remuneration, has staggeringly decided not to impose it within the academies sector, having refused my request to see the details it holds on individuals paid six-figure salaries and their positions.

So we, sadly, in the realm of anecdote rather than official information with respect to this.

*There were actually more than 100 people leading primary local authority schools in England who were paid six figures in 2019-20, as I write in this separate piece published today. It is unclear exactly how that happened; governing bodies are given some limited discretion to go outside of the STPCD pay scales, and it may be that these salaries relate to executive headteachers overseeing more than one school; it is not clear from the figures.

POSTSCRIPT: The Brilliant Club has now come back with the following statement.

“We have applied to be a provider for the National Tutoring Programme and have followed the bid process to submit our application. We are currently awaiting the outcome of our application, and as such, we are unable to comment further on the status of our bid.  

 

“When the National Tutoring Programme tender was announced, we thought carefully about where we could best contribute to the national effort to support young people at a time when they are at most risk of falling behind.  

 

“We believe that it is important to be able to offer support to pupils as soon as possible. With the outcome of the bid due to be announced at the end of October, we made the decision to begin the recruitment process now, so that if we were to be successful, we would be able to appoint and train people to begin supporting young people as soon as possible. 

 

“We are aware that some organisations have already recruited and onboarded staff in anticipation of their bid results. We have chosen to begin the application and interview phase of the recruitment process, and will await the outcome of the bid before making any appointments.  

 

“We have been transparent with applicants that these roles are contingent on whether the charity is successful in our application, with the following wording in our tutoring programme job descriptions:  

We have submitted a bid to the Education Endowment Fund to run the Brilliant Tutoring Programme (BTP). If successful, The Brilliant Club is looking to recruit up to 12 dynamic and driven individuals as BTP Programme Officers.  

 

“We have sought approval from our Board of Trustees, as we would with any new programmatic activity within the charity.  

 

“I hope that the above offers clarity on our recruitment process and confirms that we are part of a competitive bid process.”