Alternative Provision – The Right Angle We are so happy to announce the launch of our latest project – The Right Angle. The 2-year project is a collaboration between The Tutor Trust and TLC; Talk, Listen, Change, designed to support children in alternative provision and their families. The project, part of The Alternative Provision Innovation Fund, is one of nine selected from 296 applications and is the second largest across the UK to be funded by the Department for Education. The fund is overseen by the Department for Education’s Minister of State for Schools, Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP. Alongside TLC, an award-winning a relationships charity who deliver a range of services which help support safe, healthy, happy relationships, we will be piloting new ways of supporting young people who are not in mainstream schooling. Our innovative approach will address both the causes and symptoms of under-achievement. We will work alongside TLC to develop tailor-made packages for young pupils which will include not only academic support, but also therapeutic intervention for the pupil and their family. It begins this Autumn and over the course of the 2 years will support 190 children and families across our five Alternative Provision partners: Rochdale Virtual School Team Trafford Medical Education Service The Pendlebury Centre, Stockport Tameside Virtual School Team Gorse Hill Studios, Stretford Our Co-Founders Nick Bent and Abigail Shapiro, along with TLC Chief Executive Officer Michelle Hill, stated: “Our collaboration will combine tuition and therapeutic support in a way that could be life-changing for young people in Greater Manchester, and scalable to the rest of the country. We are thrilled to have the chance to pilot a truly joined-up approach to tackling both the causes and the symptoms of under-achievement and engagement in education.” As part of the project, we have appointed Beth Farrell, the Project Coordinator who oversaw our successful EEF-funded randomised control trial, as the new Alternative Provision Coordinator. She will be overseeing the project along with the newly appointed Case Coordinator at TLC, Donna Sergeant, a former manager from Barnardo’s. Together, they will be overseeing the project, co-ordinating the cases of the children and families we’ll be supporting and ensuring they have bespoke packages of services to suit their individual needs. Donna and Beth stated: “This is such a great project to be a part of, and much needed in Greater Manchester. We’re currently in the early stages, having just recruited the tutors and counselling staff who will be working with these young people, and organising meetings with the alternative provision providers, but we intend to start delivering services in early November. It is often assumed that children who are not in mainstream education are incapable of being high achievers, whereas we recognise that it is their circumstances that may act as a barrier for them, not the individuals themselves. We believe that each child we work with should be encouraged to be what they want to be and reach their full potential. As such, our project will provide a holistic package of support with interventions that will not only question the causes of the difficulties being faced by children and parents but will seek to address the issues with the aim of stopping the cycle altogether”. We at The Tutor Trust are all incredibly excited about this new project. As a charity, we have always been committed to reducing the attainment gap through academic intervention, and we have done so successfully, with our services growing rapidly across Greater Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool in just 7 years. The Right Angle marks a new chapter of fighting inequality by not only tackling barriers in a young person’s learning, but in their personal life as well.