Our strategic partner the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) held a celebration event yesterday in Westminster to welcome their new CEO, Professor Becky Francis. As one of EEF’s official ‘Promising Projects’ and one of its longest funding partners, Tutor Trust was delighted to support the event and was well represented, with both our Co-Founders attending along with most of our senior management team and three trustees. Co-Founder and CEO Nick Bent took part in a panel Q&A with Becky Francis, Prof Anna Vignoles from Cambridge University and Judith Kidd from Dixons Academies Trust in Bradford.

At the start of the event, Sir Peter Lampl, EEF Chair of Trustees, officially welcomed Prof Francis to the role, where she succeeds Sir Kevan Collins. Prior to joining EEF this month, Prof Francis was Director and Dean of the prestigious Institute of Education at UCL. Sir Peter also noted that this month marks the publication of EEF’s 100^th randomised control trial report. This demonstrates the way EEF has transformed both the quality and the quantity of education research in England since it was created in 2011.

During the panel discussion, Nick spoke about Tutor Trust’s ‘evidence journey’ as an education charity with a mission to ‘transform lives through tuition’. Tutor Trust’s story has always been intertwined with EEF’s, from our founding as a start-up with an EEF grant in 2011, through a successful randomised control trial in 2016/17, to now being one of just 18 EEF ‘Promising Projects’ in the country (and the only one based in the North of England). Plus, through our work with EEF, Tutor Trust has now joined the Impetus portfolio of charities.  

Nick highlighted how Tutor Trust works closely with EEF’s Regional Director in the North West, Pauline Brown, to identify new ways to put EEF’s research findings to practical use through new school partnerships, thus boosting the outcomes for more disadvantaged pupils. 

Last month, Tutor Trust were delighted to announce a new partnership with Intermediate Capital Group (ICG). The partnership was arranged with the help of the EEF and will provide the charity with £750,000 over a three-year period.

Over the next three years, Tutor Trust will put into action a comprehensive growth and development plan, designed as part of our strategic partnership with the EEF and Impetus and with the help of OC&C Strategic Consultants. We unveiled our Three Year Plan in November last year, on the same day we published our 2019 Impact Report.

Through these ambitious plans, we hope to: Increase the number of children and young people we work with by 70%, 85% of whom will be within our target population of disadvantaged pupils; increase tuition ‘dosage’ so pupils receive the most effective number of contact hours, making 12 hours the norm; develop office staff and IT systems to build capacity; and further increase our attention to quality and impact so that we know that every single hour of tuition is making a difference.

After the event, Co-Founders Abigail Shapiro and Nick Bent commented:

“EEF effectively created Tutor Trust by awarding us one of its launch grants, over 8 years ago. They took a big risk in backing us and our idea in 2011, but it has paid off. What started as a small pilot in the City of Manchester in 2011 is now a proven success story across the North, with gold standard evidence of impact. Tutor Trust is well established in Greater Manchester and Leeds, and growing rapidly on Merseyside. During the 2018/19 academic year, we delivered 20,000 hours of tuition to 2,500 pupils at 187 schools.

“Our ambitious Three Year Plan, developed jointly with EEF and Impetus, will see us reduce the attainment gap by 10% in our three cities by 2020 – truly transforming thousands of lives through tuition. We are hugely grateful for EEF’s ongoing enthusiastic support and we hope to show Becky Francis our tutors in action at one of our partner schools in the North very soon.”