To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) when every secondary school pupil will have a personal tutor throughout their school years; (180469)

Personal tutors will be members of staff who take responsibility for monitoring the academic and personal development of individual pupils in the round; working with their parents and other professionals to co-ordinate a tailored package of support which helps all pupils make the best possible progress. The tutors were announce in the Children’s Plan, and build on recommendations made in “2020 Vision”—the report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020 Review led by Christine Gilbert and published in January 2007—that every secondary school pupil should have a ‘learning guide’.

Our aim is that every secondary school pupil will have access to a personal tutor by the end of the Comprehensive Spending Review period (March 2011). Funding for personal tutors is provided within schools’ base budgets, via local authorities, through the Dedicated Schools Grant’s Personalised Learning strand. The 2008-11 CSR provides £1.6 billion within schools’ base budgets to ensure that schools have the capacity to deliver Personalised Learning as a whole, including personal tutors.

This work is in the planning and research stage. We are currently undertaking a programme of school visits to inform potential delivery models and decisions about piloting.