Nadhim Zahawi has pushed back on calls to extend the school day for Covid recovery and told MPs that the government was instead focused on disadvantaged pupils.   

However, the education secretary did repeat calls for more schools to move towards the national average of operating a six and a half hour day.

Appearing at his first Education Select Committee hearing as secretary of state, Mr Zahawi was questioned by committee chair Robert Halfon on whether a longer school day should be introduced, and if this had been included in the Department for Education’s bid in the comprehensive spending review.

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Extending the school day had been at the heart of the government’s former recovery commissioner Sir Kevan Collins’ plan to support pupils’ education after the pandemic and he quit when this was not included in the department’s plans.

Mr Zahawi only confirmed that the department had bid for £800m to increase the education hours of 16- to 19-year-olds by 40 hours over the academic year, and said that catch-up would be “targeted” rather than a blanket introduction of a longer day.

Asked by Mr Halfon if a longer school day would be introduced, Mr Zahawi said: “When we looked at the evidence, what became very clear - and some of that’s been published already and we’re going to publish more of that evidence - is that actually you need to target, and target on disadvantage.

“You need to look at those children who have the least time available left to them to catch up - so the 16- to 19-year-olds.”

He added: “What the chair is asking about is ‘are we going to have a longer school day?’. No, we’re not on the whole. We’re saying we’ve got targeted funds to deliver.”

Mr Zahawi said he would need to deliver the ”£5 billion” of catch-up funding and evaluate the evidence behind lengthening the school day before pursuing a trial or pilot to extend it.

Before his resignation, a longer school day was a central plank in Sir Kevan Collins’ bid for a total of £15 billion in catch-up funding.

He resigned in June when the Treasury produced £1.4 billion for catch-up in an announcement which did not include extending the day.

The recent budget has brought total catch-up investment up to nearly £5 billion, by the end of the spending review period in 2024-25.

Mr Zahawi told MPs: “Let me deliver that £5 billion, continue to evaluate, come back to the committee and show you, I hope, how well we’ve done because the evidence suggests that actually targeting and extending the day for 16- to 19-year-olds, which we’re doing, is the right thing.

He added: “There are also great examples already of [multi-academy trusts] who have chosen to have a longer day and I want to look at what they’ve done and encourage spread of good practice.”

“We now know, because we’ve got some great research capability in the department, that the average day is 6 and a half hours. What I would absolutely urge is school leaders who are below the average look at moving towards the average day.

“What I want to do is come back to you...it’s not a case of an arms race let’s chuck more money - I’ve got £5 billion, let me make it work.”

Was a longer school day part of the DfE’s spending review bid?

Mr Halfon asked if the DfE made a case for extending the school day in the spending review bid.

Mr Zahawi said that “the evidence we undertook suggested to us that the best case to make” was to extend the hours for 16- to 19-year-olds.

“Simply extending the school day would actually then move you away from targeting towards the most vulnerable, and then, of course, the disadvantaged and the ones with the greatest gap in attainment,” he added.

Susan Acland-Hood, permanent secretary at the DfE, said she expected to publish the review of the school day length “shortly”, and the education secretary said this would be before the end of the year. 

Ms Acland-Hood said the department had looked at evidence on school day length from international sources but added that “quality eats quantity for breakfast” when it came to time spent in school. 

“You can make a case that if you can increase time at very good quality there may well be some benefits there,” she added.

She said it could be an area where “one size does not fit all” and the DfE wanted heads to think about how the length of the school day affects their individual schools.

Some schools had used catch-up funding to explore this, she said. 

Mr Halfon asked why there would not be a trial or pilot of longer school days in a few areas, as he had suggested on Monday, which would allow the DfE to put a case for this to the Treasury.

Mr Zahawi said the DfE was delivering an additional £1 billion for secondary and primary education as well as £800 million for 16- to 19-year-olds, adding that there was a “big scale up” of the National Tutoring Programme. 

He added that Ofsted could carry out a thematic review of time spent in school if it was asked to do so.