We were delighted to welcome over 150 guests to our annual Summer Reception, which took place in the Historic Reading Room of the John Rylands Library on Thursday 13^th June. The event was sponsored by PwC in conjunction with the University of Manchester.

This year, we were delighted to welcome as our speakers Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, and Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council. In addition, Lucy Powell MP was announced as one of our Patrons and also spoke.

Guests included representatives from our partner schools, members of local government, funders, universities, corporate partners and of course current and alumni tutors from the Tutor Trust. The attendees gathered inside the stunning Library Room, with tutor musicians on the harp and classical guitar to soundtrack the evening.

The Tutor Trust celebrated its Seventh Birthday in September 2018. A month later, the charity was celebrating more with the publication of the EEF’s evaluation report of our work and impact. The report highlighted the positive effect Tutor Trust tuition has on the children and young people that receive it, providing “gold standard evidence” of Tutor Trust’s impact.

As a result of this brilliant news, the charity featured in a story on BBC North West Tonight.

Abigail Shapiro, Co-founder of the Tutor Trust, welcomed our guests and thanked the attendees for not only making the event, but contributing to the Tutor Trust’s work throughout the academic year, She acknowledged the progress the charity has made, pointing to the impressive developments that Tutor Trust has experienced:

• This academic year over 20,000 hours of tuition were delivered across all three cities
• Our formal partnership with the EEF was announced, bringing with it the opportunity to work closely with Impetus on a three-year growth plan
• The establishment of the Right Angle, a government-funded project in partnership with TLC: Talk Listen Change to help young people in alternative provision across Greater Manchester
• Our formal partnership with Oldham Opportunity Area

Abigail ended by thanking all the schools and tutors we’ve worked alongside to make this year of tuition as impactful as possible, before welcoming Lucy Powell MP to the stage.

Lucy Powell MP, the most recent addition to our list of Patrons, followed Abigail with a speech about how excited she is to join the Tutor Trust, describing the charity as “a special agenda and a very special project.”

It was then Sir Richard Leese’s turn to speak; he began by including Tutor Trust in a tradition of independent enterprise that has helped the Greater Manchester economy and its people, before remarking on its importance in fighting education inequality:

“We know which young people are losing out… we need to make sure we provide for them and Tutor Trust does this. The fact the Tutor Trust is working in places in the North of England where support is needed makes it very important.”

Sir Kevan Collins was then welcomed to the stage by Co-founder Nick Bent. The Education Endowment Foundation have had a big role in the Tutor Trust’s success this year, with the announcement in February 2019 that the charity had been named a ‘Promising Project’, on top of the publication of their evaluation report.

Sir Kevan said of the Tutor Trust:

“I’m particularly proud of the work we do with Tutor Trust. Because it’s been through the tough test of the Randomised Control Trial, we can make a stronger argument for people to participate in it. Tutor Trust could move into any university town in the country and have an impact.”

Nick closed the formal speeches by reiterating how proud the whole Tutor Trust team is to be ‘transforming tuition’ across the North of England and helping to close the attainment gap in education.

Finally, he encouraged our guests not to leave the event until they had spoken to at least one of our amazing tutors personally, to hear for themselves what an incredible difference our work makes in schools across Greater Manchester, Leeds and Merseyside.

The Tutor Trust would like to thank PwC and the University of Manchester for allowing us to host this event, as well as all the guests that attended. We're grateful to everyone who contributed to the charity's countless successes from this academic year and to all the attendees for making this year's Summer Reception so special.

Please follow this link to view a further selection of photos from the evening.