Last week, The Tutor Trust welcomed colleagues from our partner charity in The Right Angle Project, TLC: Talk, Listen, Change, to the Manchester office for an insightful meeting with our Alternative Provision tutors. Emma Jones-Holding and Brian Holmes led an interesting discussion about the counselling young people receive as part of The Right Angle Project. They were joined by some of our Alternative Provision tutors, Ryan Nolan, Kate Robinson, Francis Emmott, Cailum Finnegan, and Judi McGrath, along with co-founder of The Tutor Trust, Abigail Shapiro, and quality manager (Alternative Provision), Joanne Meredith.

The Right Angle has been operational since September 2018 and is a DfE Alternative Provision Innovation Fund project which provides tuition and counselling to Looked After Children and young people in alternative provision aged 11-16 in local authorities across Greater Manchester.

The meeting provided an opportunity for Alternative Provision tutors from The Tutor Trust to understand the counselling that is provided by partner charity in the project TLC: Talk, Listen, Change. From explaining what counselling is in general, to specific counselling methods and those used in The Right Angle Project, discussion covered numerous topics and gave opportunity for our tutors to ask questions they had themselves. It also gave our tutors a much broader and holistic view of how the two elements of the project work together to rectify the causes and symptoms of underachievement of young people in alternative provision.

One of our full-time Alternative Provisional tutors, Ryan Nolan, praised the session and said “Meeting with Emma and Brian was a great opportunity to understand The Right Angle Project as a whole. It gave me a really clear understanding of the work that TLC: Talk, Listen, Change do for the project.”

Our tutors found that both their confidence and preparedness for their roles within The Right Angle Project was increased as a result of the session.

The Tutor Trust’s co-founder Abigail Shapiro was very pleased with the event. She said “We are delighted to partner with TLC: Talk, Listen, Change in The Right Angle Project. Not only is it exciting working with them on this innovative project, but their commitment to the partnership working was reinforced by this session, for which we are very grateful.”

Special thanks to both Emma and Brian for giving their time for this session, which was a great success. Our tutors praised their insightful knowledge and complimented them on how engaging and interesting they made the morning.