We have been partnering with schools to deliver tutoring since 2012, and we are confident that our model works.

Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) are the gold standard for evidence of impact, and we are unique in the UK education sector in having successful results from two RCTS, both of which were commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), to our name. 

The first RCT report was published by the EEF in 2018 and led directly to Tutor Trust becoming an official 'Promising Project' of EEF and a portfolio charity of Impetus. 

In 2019 we partnered with Impetus, a charity who find, fund and support those interventions that have the most potential to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people. Through this partnership, we have focused even more closely on ensuring that our work boosts children and young people's academic outcomes and confidence as learners.

SATs and GCSE outcomes

Improving attainment is key to increasing the life chances of disadvantaged pupils, and so our key impact metrics focus on the performance of our tutees in SATs and GCSE examinations. The cancellation of SATs in both 2020 and 2021, and the use of different systems of grading for GCSEs in each year, meant that we had limited outcomes data. However, with the return of SATs and GCSEs in 2021/2022, we have access to more extensive outcomes data again. We will include them on this web page when we have completed analysis.

Other progress and assessment data

We are delighted to be working with more children and young people in Year 5 and Key Stage 3 than in previous years. While we have previously relied upon schools’ internal assessment systems to measure impact and progress for these learners, and the Learning by Questions platform, we are reviewing for this for the academic year 2022/23.  We will be conducting short, standardised online baseline and endpoint tests for all learners in year groups where there are no external examinations.

By administering baseline tests, we can examine pupils’ learning gaps and share this data with tutors and schools, and then follow up with end-of-programme tests to measure progress.

Teacher feedback

As we are a learning organisation, focused on quality and continuous improvement, feedback from our school partners is invaluable in enabling us to make our tuition even more impactful.  We have a number of opportunities where we gather formal feedback from schools: At three-week reviews, shortly after tuition has started, which enables us to further fine-tune specific programmes if needed; through our school partner portal Insight, which includes inputs from tutors on specific programmes; and, through our annual School Partner Survey, where we gather feedback from all schools we’ve partnered with over the year.

Schools also regularly send unprompted feedback about pupil progress. Anna MacDiarmid, Pupil Premium and Catch-Up Premium Lead of Pinehurst Primary School in Liverpool, wrote:

Every child who worked with Tutor Trust made progress, apart from one child who still achieved the expected standard (this child missed sessions due to absence). Some of the children made excellent progress, for example, a child with a reading mock SAT score of 88 scored 100. Amazing!"

Lisa Houghton, Headteacher of Ashurst Primary School in St Helens, Merseyside, wrote:

We are delighted with our 2022 SATs results which show the impact of quality first teaching and intervention that Sasha has provided via The National Tutoring Programme and Tutor Trust.  Our results are above national in all areas with 70% achieving Reading, Writing and Maths combined.  The impact of small group intervention and a clear focus on addressing gaps in learning has really accelerated progress for individuals and resulted in them excelling in their SATs.”

We also conduct regular surveys to gather our school partners’ views. In 2021/22, we received 65 responses to our School Partner Survey. Of these:

• 98% of respondents would recommend us to another school
• 87% agreed or strongly agreed that tutoring had a positive impact on pupil attainment
• 97% agreed or strongly agreed that tutoring had a positive impact on pupil confidence
• 89% agreed or strongly agreed that tutoring had a positive impact on pupils’ enjoyment of learning

We meet with schools at key points throughout programmes to review progress, and at the end of programmes to discuss overall progress.

Every year, we review feedback from our schools and use it to further improve what we do. As part of this, we introduced Insight in 2021/202, a platform for our school partners that shows near real-time data of how each of their tuition programmes are running in their school and gives them access to detailed feedback from tutors after every session.

Read more about our impact in our case studies, for Greater Manchester, Leeds-Bradford and Merseyside

Pupil feedback

Our pupils are the reason that we exist, and we want to ensure that they feel tutoring makes a real difference to them.

Hearing from them directly about how they feel their confidence has grown is always heart-warming, especially coupled with the lovely cards and thank you notes our tutors receive.

We also collect Pupil Voice data through surveys, and in 2021/2022 we had nearly 1,500 pupils complete these. Of these:

• 88% of pupils agreed or strongly agreed that they have made more academic progress after having received tutoring
• 90% of pupils agreed or strongly agreed that their tutor encouraged them in their sessions
• 85% of pupils agreed or strongly agreed that their tutor made tutoring sessions fun
• 84% of pupils agreed or strongly agreed that, after tutoring, they now feel more confident in lessons