We are delighted to announce a new partnership with MariaMarina Foundation. Funding from the Foundation will boost the future of our ground-breaking The Right Angle project for the next three years, ensuring the unique programme can continue to support some of the North’s most vulnerable young people.

Hear from our tutors on The Right Angle about the difference the project is making to vulnerable young people

The award-winning The Right Angle is delivered by a partnership between Tutor Trust and TLC: Talk, Listen, Change, a North West-based relationships charity. Our collaboration on The Right Angle enables us to jointly offer academic support through tuition plus therapeutic counselling to address social, emotional and mental health issues.  This two-pronged approach has resulted in a highly impactful programme of holistic support targeted at Cared for Children or those in Alternative Provision settings, a demographic whose academic achievements are recognised as being much lower than those of their peers in mainstream education settings. 

A report published by The Centre for Social Justice (11 May 2020): ‘Warming the Cold Spots of Alternative Provision: A manifesto for system improvement’, states: “In 13 LAs not a single child in AP has passed their English and maths GCSE in the past three years. In three, not a single teacher in AP is qualified. And there is no area in the country where the rate of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) after leaving AP equals even the very worst-performing area for children from mainstream.”

The funding from MariaMarina Foundation, which supports causes focused on education and the wellbeing of children and young people, means that we will be able to continue to accelerate greater academic progress for this cohort than they would normally achieve nationally, says Abigail Shapiro, Co-founder and Executive Director of Tutor Trust.

The support from MariaMarina Foundation is invaluable in enabling us to continue this vital work and we are really appreciative of their generosity.

We established The Right Angle in 2018 as we believed that, by supporting the emotional wellbeing of this very vulnerable cohort of young people, we would enable them to maximise the benefits of tuition and unlock their potential. We found that offering a combination of tutoring sessions and counselling increased the impact and improved their outcomes.

Cared for Children or those in Alternative Provision have always faced enormous challenges, and Tutor Trust, together with TLC, want to do all that we can to support them to achieve.  Unfortunately, the challenges they were facing in 2018 have been magnified by the pandemic and lockdowns and vulnerable young people are at risk of being left even further behind.

There is a huge demand for The Right Angle intervention, with further partners wanting to become part of the work. Thanks to MariaMarina Foundation we can continue to reach out to as many of these young people as possible and help them on their journey to achieve all that they deserve.”

Sumitra Saha, Project Manager of MariaMarina Foundation says:

“We are proud to be partnering with Tutor Trust on this excellent project. Young people growing up in care and those in Alternative Provision are amongst the most vulnerable in our society - helping these young people to fulfil their potential is extremely important to MariaMarina Foundation. The Right Angle stood out to us for its impactful, innovative and thoughtful approach.”

The Right Angle was funded initially by the Department for Education (DfE) between September 2018 and July 2020 and was one of just nine successful applications out of 296 to the DfE’s Alternative Provision Innovation Fund. As one of the largest APIF projects in the UK, the value and impact of our project continues to be recognised and supported well beyond the end of the funding in July 2020.

The Right Angle’s Final Project Report for the APIF in December 2020 demonstrated the project’s positive impact on the lives of more than 200 vulnerable young people in secondary schools, showing that pupils thrived mentally and academically:

• Pupils accessing both counselling and tuition were twice as likely to improve their GCSE grade.
• On average those who had counselling and tuition attended five more tuition sessions than those who had tutoring alone.
• Looked after Children showed the greatest difference in GCSE results when they engaged in tutoring and counselling.
• 57% of pupils demonstrated a clinically significant decrease in psychological distress.
• 71% of KS3 pupils improved their National Group Reading Test scores.

In July 2020 the Fair Education Alliance awarded The Right Angle their Scaling Award. The award has supported us to grow at pace, extending the scope of The Right Angle team to support more young people and to make an even bigger difference to their education.

Tutors working with young people as part of The Right Angle recognise the benefits this bespoke support brings.  Tutor Trust have created a new video featuring tutors Cailum Finnegan, Sarah Thrussell and Jason Rose who share their experiences of the project.  They talk about the importance of creating a connection with their tutees, and how understanding their hopes and aspirations for the future can help make tuition sessions more meaningful and relevant.

Tutor Sarah Thrussell, who has worked with Tutor Trust for more than three years, says there is something special about building those connections with students:

For a lot of these students there are so many professionals and adults coming in and out of their lives, so being able to have that time to build the relationship, and then see that develop and confidence grow, that’s just a privilege.”