Pupils in blue uniforms at a primary school

End of The Tutor Trust's 14th year

At the end of our first year without government funding, we discuss how we've managed to diversify our offering and expand to a new region

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  • Time to read: 4 minutes

We have reached the end of another amazing academic year! As we begin to reflect, we want to thank our schools, funders, tutors and young people. It's been a transformative year for us, full of milestones, meaningful outcomes, and momentum for the future.

At a glance 

We want to celebrate another year of successful partnerships.  

2024-25 has been a hugely successful year for us, particularly as our first operating without government funding for tuition. Despite that challenge of a difficult funding environment, we’ve expanded our reach and deepened our impact by supporting almost 5,500 young people who are primarily from low-income communities since September 2024. We have worked with over 180 schools and educational settings. This a huge achievement and we are grateful to our partners, funders, tutors and staff. 

Children love the tutoring sessions and most have completed homework set by Esther. She has a lovely relationship with the children and they want to do well for her. The children who have completed work with her overall have made brilliant progress this year."
Sam Buckley, Assistant Headteacher, Lark Hill Community Primary School

Expanding our reach 

Tutoring Plus is our tuition offer for those learners who would benefit from more individualised and tailored support. The growth we have seen amongst this work is a standout achievement. Over 500 young people have benefitted from this programme (a 25% increase since last year) across more than 60 schools and educational settings.  

We’ve also broadened our support into the post-16 space, working with over 200 young people in colleges in the last year, with a number of these young people taking part in a pilot supported by the Education Endowment Foundation. Our English and Maths GCSE resit programme has great potential to help close the gap in academic support the post-16 space. We are awaiting the results of our post-16 tutees’ resits towards the end of the summer as well as a full evaluation from the National Foundation for Educational Research in the coming year. 

A new region

There’s a lot to celebrate as we are now active in half of all primary schools in Hartlepool!

Before January 2025, Tutor Trust hadn’t worked with a single pupil in the North East. Just a few months later, we have provided tuition to over 500 young people in the region.

We have set the groundwork for a very strong start to the next academic year of tutoring in Hartlepool with new secondary school partners already signed up. Starting up in a new region means new tutors, whom we have found thanks to our new partnership with Teeside University.
As a local to the North East it was important for me to help meet the needs of students who may often get overlooked in the community. It is also good to know I have helped to raise aspirations of some students."
Megan Dixon, Teesside University Student and Tutor in Tees Valley

Focus on quality 

Our work continues to deliver on quality and our tutors are role models for the young people we tutor. This year we made sure that 280 people were ready to tutor in the north by providing great training and support. Our team of qualified teachers help us to quality assure our tuition, observing sessions in person and spot-checking our tutors’ lesson plans. This year, over 95% of lesson observations were rated ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. Key improvements to the Thinqi training platform streamlined the learning experience. 

Throughout the year we have successfully engaged tutors in high-quality training, evidenced by consistently high satisfaction rates for online courses (98%) and Live Sessions (94% rated Good or Excellent).

For our English training, for example, tutors’ reported satisfaction of content and delivery improved to 100% during modular training and 98% in live training sessions. 

Being a tutor in itself is rewarding, but especially when you are working in an organisation that targets tuition at young people who might be at a disadvantage."
Paulina Szwabska, University of Manchester Student and Tutor in Greater Manchester

AI and tech pioneers 

We are exploring how to utilise AI to improve and create engaging lessons plans. Our pilot will evaluate the difference in the quality of lesson plans created by our tutors, and those created using different AI platforms (Oak Academy's Aila and MagicSchool). We hope that this pilot will also help us to determine what to look for when monitoring AI-generated lesson plans and how we can best use AI to create effective lessons for the young people we support. 

Tutor Trust's new Manchester office. A wooden worksurface is in the foreground, whilst grey pillars and computer workstations sit further back

Strengthening the foundations

Behind the scenes, we’ve made essential improvements that will support the long-term sustainability of our charity. We've relocated our Leeds and Manchester offices so that they better suit our hybrid working model, whilst still ensuring that tutors and visitors have somewhere to meet our staff in person. For our tutors, we have been developing the resource bank which they can use to plan and deliver engaging sessions. Using a platform called Thinqi, we provide thousands of lesson resources, checked by our team of former teachers for quality.

Looking ahead 

Now that we are in the summer holidays and schools are officially out for summer, our staff team are hard at work, building on this year’s achievements. We are excited to welcome schools back in September. 

Tutor recruitment for 2025-26 is now open. Aspiring tutors can apply now to join us in transforming lives through tutoring.

 

Thank you again 

To every partner, tutor, school, funder, and supporter, thank you. Your commitment, energy and belief in our mission have made this year possible. 

I feel more confident and more ready for my SATs. I feel very lucky with this tutoring session because not many people have the chance to learn stuff and revise stuff they have missed out on.”
Year 6 Pupil, Christ Church Upper Armley CE School
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