Ed in a dark blue suit and blue tie, stands next to Abigail, in a white jacket and dark trousers. They are both standing in front of a bookcase and both are smiling for the camera.

Another year of transforming lives through tutoring

We're looking back on an impactful year in which we have supported almost 6,400 young people in schools and educational establishments across Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and Merseyside. 

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As we end the academic year, I want to reflect on 2023/24

We start the summer holidays with immense pride in our work; since September, our fabulous team of tutors have supported almost 6,400 individual children and young people and, with some tutees receiving tutoring in more than one subject, have delivered over 7,500 tutoring programmes. Quality and impact, as ever, remain at the heart of our work, and we are delighted by the strong progress made by our tutees over the course of their tutoring, as well as the very positive impact tutoring has on their confidence and enjoyment of learning.

This year has not been easy for our school partners. With many schools facing severe pressure on budgets, and National Tutoring Programme (NTP) subsidies reducing from 75% in 2021/22 to 60% in 2022/23, it's been more challenging than ever before for schools to afford the high-quality tutoring support that their pupils need. With the support from our generous funders and partners keeping the costs to schools down, and with the strong reputation of the charity, we're proud that, despite the headwinds, we've been able to maintain our volume of delivery at a very similar level to the previous year. This means that thousands of children and young people in the North, two-thirds of whom receive Pupil Premium funding, are benefiting from high-quality, high-impact tutoring. 

Alongside our tutoring, we have been working behind the scenes to make the case for a sustainable future for tuition in schools, and for that tuition to be targeted at children and young people from lower-income families and communities. Our co-founder and Executive Director, Abigail Shapiro, has spoken to officials in Westminster on three separate occasions.  With our sister charities, we’ve also taken part in a research programme to provide valuable evidence to support our movement, launching a report, The Future of Tutoring, in Parliament earlier this month. We were pleased when the Government announced that the NTP subsidy for schools would be 50% in 2023/2024, as opposed to the planned 25%, and we are continuing to call for ringfenced funding for tutoring beyond the lifespan of the current NTP. 

Our pledge to schools to keep tuition costs the same as this year (to counteract the reduction in the NTP subsidy) means we've seen more schools than ever before already sign up for the Autumn term. And we’ve recently opened tutor recruitment for 2023/2024, attracting record numbers of applications from highly motivated and inspiring individuals.

Abigail and I believe that the last academic year has been one where strong partnership and collaboration have yielded results.

We’re really proud of the year we have had as an organisation. We have supported almost 6,400 young people, worked with existing partners and found new ones, and kept focused on supporting pupils to achieve their potential."
Abigail Shapiro, Co-Founder and Executive Director

Our team have worked tremendously hard to ensure we reach the pupils who need tuition, and our tutors have been amazing, as always, in engaging their pupils and fostering a love of learning, that filters into other areas of their school life.

We have an open dialogue with our school partners and know the financial challenges many are facing with rising costs and the fall in subsidies from the NTP.  But we listen, we learn, and we have adapted so that we can continue to meet their needs and ensure their pupils are still able to benefit from our high-quality tutoring.

It has been a challenge for all parties, but we have been fortunate to have generous funders who fully back our mission. They want every child who needs tuition to have access to it, and they support us to do that.

In the new academic year, with our funders’ support, we are offering schools tuition at the same price as they paid this year, so that, even though the NTP subsidy has fallen from 60% to 50%, they won’t need to spend any more.

Working collaboratively is so important to us, and we’ll continue to do this so that every child who needs tuition has it.

Our pledge to schools to keep tuition costs the same as this year (to counteract the reduction in the NTP subsidy) means a number have already signed up for the Autumn term. And we’ve recently opened recruitment for 2023/2024, attracting record numbers of applications from highly motivated and inspiring individuals who want to train to tutor with us, so that they can be in classrooms in September.

We are ready for the new academic year, but we are also taking time to reflect on a year in which we have continued to transform lives through tutoring, and champion tuition on a national stage.

In the last 12 months, we have:

  • Provided high-quality tuition to 6,372 pupils during the academic year
  • Supported over 34,000 hours of tutoring
  • Worked as a Tuition Partner of the NTP for the third successive year
  • Worked closely, and flexibly, with 156 schools
  • Recruited 340 individuals to train as tutors with us
  • Heard that our Year 11 GCSE tutees had done significantly better than disadvantaged pupils nationally, and that the gap was even larger when compared with disadvantaged pupils across the 18 local authorities in which we operate
  • Supported our tutees to make an average of 2 percentage points of progress in their subject, as measured by our baseline and endpoint pupil assessments,
  • Launched an educational podcast, Tutorcast, as another means to support our tutors in delivering inspiring sessions
  • Successfully rolled out a new equity programme aimed at making it easier for students from similar backgrounds to the pupils we support to apply to become tutors with us
  • Published our 2022 Impact Report, sharing the results of our second successful Randomised Control Trial
  • Launched several new schemes of work, including our Literature Lit Up programme, aimed at inspiring a love of literature in secondary students
  • Piloted new ways of supporting children and young people, including Phonics tutoring at Key Stage 1
  • Launched our Digital Transformation Programme, to make it easier for us to build stronger and even more effective partnerships with schools so that we can continue to support the young people that need it most.

And personally, in exciting news for me, I joined in February.

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