What impact does tutoring have?

The heart and soul of Tutor Trust is about maximising the positive impact of tutoring on pupil outcomes, especially for the disadvantaged pupils we serve in Greater Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.  We want more of our tuition to be delivered to the pupils who need it most, so that they see a meaningful boost to their outcomes at SATs and GCSEs.

Our tutors are trained to work with all pupils, in both Primary and Secondary school, at all levels of attainment so that every young person has the support they need to fulfil their potential.  Our mission is to ‘transform lives through tutoring’ by providing a high-quality tuition service for disadvantaged students, so we request that a minimum of 80% of tutees are pupil premium, LAC or in alternative provision.  Our research has shown that students need a minimum of 12 hours of tuition per subject for it to have a meaningful impact.

Our 2020 Impact Report showcases the positive impact that all our tutors have across the full range of our work: English, Science and Maths tutoring across Primary, Secondary and Alternative Provision.  Our new Impact Report focusses on all that we achieved – with our partner schools – in the very difficult circumstances of the 2019/20 academic year.

Tutor Trust is unique as a charity in offering high quality, professional tuition services at a cost schools can afford.  As talented undergraduates, our tutors are great role models as well as effective academic tutors.  Most of the pupils we support would not otherwise be able to access tutors.

The 2019/20 academic year saw us work with over 2,500 young people at 173 schools.  Our 2020 Impact Report celebrates the fantastic work that our tutors have done to raise pupils’ attainment and aspirations across Greater Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. 

The report also highlights the innovative approach taken by Tutor Trust in response to the global covid pandemic.

In April 2020, we launched our first pilot of online tutoring in Maths and English.  By May 2020, we were proud to be one of just four partners selected to deliver the National Online Tutoring Pilot.  This pilot was run by the Education Endowment Foundation, NESTA, Impetus and The Sutton Trust, with Tutor Trust being the only partner based in the North of England.

We also supplied free laptops to pupils who needed computer equipment and supported nearly 200 young people through online tutoring.  Our growing team worked tirelessly, supporting young people and their teachers in a time of crisis.  Together, we harnessed the best technologies in the business to build a new operating model for Tutor Trust; one that allows us to further improve our quality and impact while also scaling up; and one that makes us Covid-proof, because everything can be done online if necessary.   

We have successfully embedded new systems for tutor recruitment and training online, as well as quality assurance and impact evaluation.

Read our case studies here

Randomised Control Trial, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) 

Download the EEF evaluation of Tutor Trust, November 2018  

The gold standard of evidence of impact is a randomised control trial (RCT), so we were delighted that during the 2016/17 school year the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) funded an RCT of our tuition.  We are thrilled with the results and have been designated as a ‘Promising Project’ by EEF.

The EEF evaluation was a large-scale, high-quality effectiveness study in the form of a randomised control trial, involving 105 primary schools and 1,290 pupils across Greater Manchester and Leeds.  The study examined the impact of Tutor Trust’s Year 6 Maths tuition on KS2 SATS results in May 2017, with KS1 SATS results as the baseline. 

The headline results are very strong: pupils in the intervention group who received our tuition made an additional 3 months of progress in Maths compared with pupils in the control group.  On average, this 3 months of additional progress was the outcome from just 12 hours of tuition, delivered on a 1:3 tutor to pupil basis.  The cost of the intervention was low, at just £112 per child. 

Tutor Trust wants to help close the attainment gap in England’s schools, so we are particularly thrilled that EEF found our tutors made the biggest difference to pupils on Free Schools Meals and pupils with low prior attainment.  The pupils in this evaluation were three times more likely to be on Free School Meals than the national average. 

This ambitious research study was designed to test whether the Tutor Trust intervention worked under everyday conditions in a large number of schools, and we passed this test with flying colours.

In addition to the rigorous data analysis of outcomes, EEF also conducted a process evaluation.  This included observations of tuition as well as interviews with and surveys of Headteachers, classroom teachers and pupils.  The feedback from schools was overwhelmingly positive. 

Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the EEF, is encouraging Headteachers to partner with Tutor Trust.  He commented:  

“Schools should consider the Tutor Trust’s model as a cost-effective way to boost attainment for struggling pupils." 

 

Quality & Impact: Our Plans for 2019-2022

As a result of our impressive evaluation, Tutor Trust has been delighted to partner with Impetus over a three year period.  Impetus support the most promising charities around the UK to help deepen their impact and expand their work supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

The heart and soul of our plan is about maximising the positive impact of tuition on pupil outcomes, especially for the disadvantaged pupils we serve in Greater Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.  And if we achieve what we have set out to do, we will reduce the attainment gap in Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Leeds by 10%. 

Our plan includes:

• Reaching more of the children and young people who need us the most: our aim is to increase the number of children and young people we work with.  By 2022, our aim is that 85% of the pupils we work with will be within our target population - from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, care-experienced, in Alternative Provision or at risk of exclusion from school; 
• Increasing tuition dosage: evidence from our RCT shows that twelve hours of tuition enables meaningful progress. Our internal data also indicates that for both primary and secondary pupils, more tuition correlates with better outcomes. We are changing the way we market and sell tuition to schools, ensuring that schools buy a block package of tuition. This will enable us to ensure that pupils get at least twelve hours of support;
• Further improving quality and impact: at the heart of our mission is quality and impact. We are incredibly proud of the extremely positive feedback our tutors receive. As we scale, we aim to make further improvements to our recruitment, training and development of tutors, and to the feedback mechanisms by which tutors communicate with teachers, to ensure that every hour of tuition has a strong positive impact on attainment.