We have been in celebratory mood this month as we mark the start of our 10^th anniversary year!

Ten years ago today, on 29 September 2011, Tutor Trust was officially registered with The Charity Commission, following a prestigious launch grant from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). On that date we began our journey to ‘transform lives through tutoring’ and we delivered our first tuition session in February 2012 at Whalley Range High School for Girls in Manchester.  

Since then, it has been a decade of growth and expansion. We’ve forged partnerships with schools in Greater Manchester, Leeds, Merseyside, and, most recently, Bradford, to enable us to match pupils who need some extra academic support with a great tutor.  We’ve built strong alliances with universities in our city-regions, to enable us to recruit talented and personable students and graduates as tutors.

We have also secured a string of important awards along the way, which recognise our contribution to education and our local communities:

• The Charity Times Awards, September 2016 – won 'Best New Charity in Britain';
• Spirit of Manchester Awards, November 2016 – won 'Best Partnerships Award';
• 2017 Yorkshire Bank Foundation Awards – won the top award, beating 300 other entries; 
• July 2018 – project 'The Right Angle' won an award from the Department for Education's Alternative Provision Innovation Fund (there were 296 applications to this fund and Tutor Trust was one of just nine winners across the country);
• February 2019 – awarded official 'Promising Project' status by the Education Endowment Foundation (HMG's 'What Works Centre' for Education and Social Mobility). There are only 18 'Promising Projects' and Tutor Trust is the only one based in the North of England;
• November 2019 – won 'The Learners Award' at the National Children and Young People Now Awards;
• July 2020 – won a prestigious 'Scaling Award' from the Fair Education Alliance (one of just seven winners of these awards across the whole country);
• November 2020 – appointed an official Tuition Partner of the Government’s flagship National Tutoring Programme (ranked number one out of 393 applications).

In addition, marking the start of our anniversary year was the announcement this month that we have been reappointed as a Tuition Partner of the National Tutoring Programme for the new academic year.

It has been an amazing decade and we wanted to mark the start of our milestone anniversary with a staff party, complete with a cake and balloons. The event gave colleagues old and new the opportunity to catch up and, as the team has almost doubled in size during the pandemic and lockdowns, it gave many a chance to meet face-to-face for the first time.

“It seemed a perfect way to launch our 10^th anniversary year and say thank you to the team for all they have done in helping drive Tutor Trust forward, especially over the challenges of the last year,” said Co-Founders Nick Bent and Abigail Shapiro.

They added: “The party gave us a chance to reflect on our achievements and also to look ahead. We are very excited for the new projects we have in scope for 2021-2022, as well as the bigger celebration we have planned for next summer to mark our anniversary with our partners and funders!”