The COVID-19 pandemic prompted unprecedented school closures in England, which quickly generated widespread concern at the impacts of missed schooling: 'lost learning' became the dominant motif of these concerns and 'catch-up' emerged as the received solution. This article focuses on the central pillar of the government's post-pandemic response: the National Tutoring Programme (NTP). It offers a critical assessment of the development of the NTP, exploring and questioning the key values, motivations and assumptions that shaped it. It considers the problematisations of the policy and the meaning-making embedded within its language. 'Learning loss' and 'catch-up' are found to be central metaphors, premised on vague and unsubstantiated measures of gap and attainment. Ultimately, the discussion concludes that the transformation of the policy from a well-intentioned intervention targeting disadvantaged students to a government accountability lever that imposes on schools both the onus of successful delivery, as well as of partial funding, is a critical failure of the policy.