Our fundamental priority is delivering impactful, high-quality, research-driven tutoring. Randomised Control Trials are the gold standard for evidence of impact, and Tutor Trust is now unique in the UK education sector in having successful results from two RCTs to our name.   

We want to ensure that every single hour our tutors spend with a young person is positive and effective. The young people we serve deserve the very best tutoring. As a learning organisation, we constantly review and refine every aspect of our work, drawing on extensive feedback from schools and utilising the best research evidence and professional practice available to inform all that we do.

At every stage of their involvement with us, we support our potential, newly-trained, and active tutors to succeed, giving them support and practical tools to enable them to maximise the impact of every hour of tutoring. We focus on quality in everything we do, and we start this at the application stage.

Recruiting great tutors

We want to recruit only those people who have the potential to become exceptional tutors. Our multi-stage recruitment process looks not only at the individual’s academic qualifications and experience, but also at their personal qualities, motivations for applying, and ability to build rapport with young people. All potential tutors who are shortlisted after the application stage are interviewed by two members of staff, with the interview including a mock tutoring session.

We routinely review our recruitment metrics to ensure that they are positively correlated with the work tutors go on to deliver and are confident that our processes help us to identify those people with the potential to be inspiring tutors and role models. You can read more about our recruitment process here.

The vast majority of our tutors say that they work with Tutor Trust because they want to make a positive impact in their community and give back, and that tutoring allows them to make a difference.  We value our tutors, and offer them a competitive rate of pay, as well as a series of bonuses. One of the bonuses – for completing at least 30 hours of tutoring (equivalent to two completed assignments of 15 hours each) – is awarded because of the findings of our first RCT which proved the impact, on attainment, of 12 hours of tuition.  As a result, our assignments are delivered in 15 one-hour blocks, so that we can make certain, allowing for absences, that the majority of tutees achieve a minimum of 12 hours of tutoring support.

Training

Once tutors are selected to train with us, we share our high expectations with them from the beginning.  During our training, tutors consistently see our quality criteria, and we explore what fantastic tutoring programmes look like. All our training is delivered by education professionals with senior leadership experience in schools and/or in teacher training. They ensure our tutors know how to plan engaging, high-impact sessions with clear objectives, that are directed to their pupils’ learning needs.

Our training programme includes a number of assessed tasks, culminating in tutors producing their own plan for a session. Any tutors who need additional support receive it, and we only make tutors eligible to bid for assignments once we are confident that they meet our high-quality standards.

Monitoring and support

Once tutors are on assignment, our Quality Team of 14 teachers ensure that they are delivering fantastic work. In the 2021/2022 academic year, we monitored 91% of tutors who delivered work for us. Monitoring is carried out in two main ways: Observing actual sessions in schools or recorded lessons online; and providing tutors with feedback on their lesson plans. Two-thirds (64%) of all tutors who delivered work were observed by a qualified teacher.

Tutors either receive feedback via email or through an online conversation where their strengths are celebrated and their areas for development are shared, so that they can improve the quality of each hour of work they deliver. In 2021/22, we were delighted that 96% of tutors we monitored were delivering good or outstanding work – and, of course, the 4% who required a bit more support from us received it.

Ongoing professional development

The Quality Team also organise further support throughout the year, sometimes in partnership with other organisations such as TeachFirst and Place2Be, so that tutors have frequent opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills.

As a learning organisation, we support our tutoring community regularly with new resources on subjects relevant to them and the tutees we serve, including materials informed by current educational research or those that address gaps that we have seen in tutees’ learning.  

We release weekly tutorials and resources, and, each month, have a live, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) session on an aspect of teaching practice, or a topic to reflect on, such as mental health.  All are designed to support our tutors' professional growth and tuition skills, and to maximise the impact of each hour of tuition.