Analysis of catch-up and support programmes

The first study will start with a document analysis of the applications for catch up and suppor programmes submitted by schools in round 2. We will categorise the funded programmes (if the relevant information was provided on the application) according to type of intervention (extended school day, autumn school, etc.) and effective elements, as identified in our earlier literature review. These elements are:

• number of hours (both intensity per day/week and duration in weeks) per student;
• cooperation with parents;
  incentives to guarantee participation (especially for voluntary summer schools, after-school programmes and weekend programmes);
• programme content and structure;
  qualifications and relevant training of the tutors;
• group size;
• relevance to the regular curriculum and classroom instruction.

This will result in an overview of the programmes, which we will use in sub-studies B to D. We will then examine why schools aim to implement these programmes, the intended target group and objective, and the context within which they expect the programmes to have an effect; in other words, the theory of change of the funded catch-up and support programmes.

This theory of change will further be described through semi-structured telephone interviews and a short online questionnaire with a stratified sample of 100 schools (based on intervention type, objective, target group, weighted student funding percentage, school type and geographical distribution and including all schools in the Caribbean region). In these interviews, we will ask the interviewee to describe the expected effective elements, and how they are ensuring participating of target students in the programme. Successful strategies will be shared with other schools in our first webinar (see knowledge utilisation).