Tomorrow, 29 September 2018, The Tutor Trust will turn 7!  It was on 29 September 2011 that Tutor Trust was officially registered with the Charity Commission and we are celebrating.  It was in early September 2011 that the Education Endowment Foundation agreed to fund a pilot of Tutor Trust in Manchester, and that’s when a good idea began its journey of ‘transforming tuition’.

So, we want to share our favourite seven facts about the success of Tutor Trust so far, and we have also asked seven key team members and supporters (including the Education Secretary and the Mayor of Greater Manchester) to share their best moments from the past seven years.  Even more important than celebrating the past, we are looking to the future.  People talk about the ‘seven year itch’ but we are just itching to ensure thousands more young people get the chance to learn from, and to be inspired by, a brilliant tutor. 

All this week, we have been celebrating different aspects of our work and our team on social media, using the hashtag #7yearsofTTT.  We are now also on Instagram at @TheTutorTrust, in addition to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter – please give us a follow.

From all of us at Tutor Trust, thank you to all of you who have tutored with us, supported us, advised us, funded us and encouraged us.  We are delighted to be celebrating this birthday and we look forward to many happy returns of the day!

 

Our seven favourite facts

We are fortunate to have achieved so much over the past seven years, so narrowing it down to just seven successes is tricky, but we would suggest the following:

1. Over 90,000 hours of tuition delivered
2. Now working in the three biggest cities in the Northern Powerhouse (Greater Manchester; Leeds; Liverpool)
3. 1,446 tutors recruited and trained
4. Partnered with 300 schools
5. Won three major charity awards
6. Commended in numerous policy reports
7. Major contract won with DfE on Alternative Provision, in partnership with TLC Talk Listen Change. 

 

Reflections from seven key members of the team and key supporters

Rt Hon Damian Hinds MP, Secretary of State for Education (in a letter to Tutor Trust in September 2018):

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the exceptional work being done by The Tutor Trust.  This unique initiative has made a positive difference to many young people and everyone at The Tutor Trust should be proud of the work they are doing.”

Rt Hon Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester (speaking at our Summer Reception in June 2018)

“I passionately support the Tutor Trust and wanted to be here tonight to say it fits completely with everything we are trying to achieve through devolution in Greater Manchester. It's initiatives like this that I think we need to support. We have to be a city region that really gives that helping hand to every single young person. Abigail and Nick, you've created something truly of our times, an organisation that can help give that helping hand to young people who need it most.”

Nick Bent, Co-Founder and CEO:

“Every year has had a highlight or ten that I could choose, but receiving our first Government grant this summer for an important piece of work with vulnerable pupils in Alternative Provision was a real milestone.  Abigail and I took it as a huge vote of confidence in both the current calibre and the future potential of our charity.”

Abigail Shapiro, Co-Founder and Executive Director:

“The past seven years has been an amazing journey but Tutor Trust began for me and Nick a few years before that when the basic idea was born about how we can democratise tuition.  We were so aware of how unfair it was for pupils who couldn’t access a tutor and we worked hard to gather support for our unique proposition and to create a compelling business case.  And so, my  top Tutor Trust moment must be in September 2011, when we registered as a charity and received one of the launch grants from the EEF. It was finally time to recruit our first cohort of tutors and start working in a Manchester school.  Our vision was becoming a reality.”

Jason Heaford, Chief Operating Officer:

“Having been part of the organisation for nearly five years, it has been incredible to see Tutor Trust grow from a small Manchester team covering a few Greater Manchester local authorities to now covering the whole of GM, and now having offices in Leeds and Liverpool too. Being part of, and contributing to, such a fast growing and dynamic team, has been so rewarding.”

Pete McIntyre, Chair of Trustees:

“I, together with Mike Emmerich, have been Trustees since the start.  Welcoming new Trustees with specialisms and experience to serve with us on our Board that now totals six, has been so encouraging to see and fantastic to be part of.”

Matt Wallis and Jenny Muter, Quality Managers:

“The Quality Manager role is absolutely vital to making sure that every hour of tuition delivered is the best it can be. Right from recruitment through to leading CPD for our tutors, monitoring the quality of tuition and evaluating its impact involves the whole Tutor Trust team, including our trustees too. The Quality Managers personally report back to trustees at least once a year to update them on our impact.” 

 

And finally, seven thoughts about the future:

1. We are awaiting publication of the independent evaluation of Tutor Trust that was commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation – we hope this will give us gold standard evidence of the quality of our services and the beneficial impact we have on our tutees.
2. We believe we have proven the Tutor Trust model works in three great cities in the North of England (Greater Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool), so is it time for us to expand to serve other cities in the Northern Powerhouse area?  And indeed the rest of the country?
3. This autumn marks the halfway point of our major project on Transition in Salford, working with Buile Hill and Oasis MediaCityUK and seven local primary schools.  We think our tutors can help young people make a successful start at secondary school, and we are excited about replicating this work across the North. 
4. Many of our tutors become teachers when they graduate, either through Teach First, a SCITT, a PGCE or another route.  Some of our alumni are now successful middle leaders.  We are keen to explore new ways to get more of the most talented graduates into the schools and the communities where more outstanding teachers are most needed.
5. Tutor Trust has collaboration and partnership in its DNA – we could not have achieved all we have without huge amounts of support from others, and we want to play our part in supporting other individuals and organisations who share our vision and values.  Our membership of the Fair Education Alliance is key to this, and we are talking to FEA about boosting our contribution to their research and advocacy.
6. In all three cities we serve, our partnerships with the Universities are at the heart of our work and where we recruit the vast majority of our tutors – how do we build on this and draw on the intellectual and social capital of the academics as well as the students?  How best can Tutor Trust support the Widening Participation work of Universities?
7. There is mounting research evidence that greater investment, including appropriate educational input, in the very youngest members of society is vital to help every child thrive and flourish and to help every child be ‘school ready’.  Could there be a role for Tutor Trust in Early Years?