A tutor shows pupils how to work out a Maths question

We’re playing a leading role in asking government to prioritise tutoring

Today marks an important milestone for Tutor Trust and our sister tutoring charities as we launch our co-authored report, The Future of Tutoring, at an event hosted by the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan.

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Tutor Trust, along with the Children’s Commissioner, cross-party politicians, and a number of our sister charities, are asking the Government to: "Put tutoring at the heart of the education landscape, or risk a generation of children falling behind."

We are joining senior figures including England’s Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel De Souza, Chair of the Education Select Committee Robin Walker MP, former Education Secretary the Rt Hon. the Lord Blunkett and Liberal Democrat education spokesperson, Munira Wilson MP – in calling for a Tutoring Guarantee over the next Parliament to narrow the widening attainment gap and support young people’s declining mental health.

Pupils from more socio-economically challenged communities across our city regions are at risk of falling further behind without the additional boost to learning that tuition can bring. Nationally, disadvantaged pupils are still lagging two months behind pre-pandemic levels of attainment.

We are working hard across the Greater Manchester, Leeds-Bradford and Merseyside city regions to narrow the attainment gap. To date this academic year, our tutors, drawn from students and graduates of local universities, qualified teachers and mid-career professionals, have supported 6,300 pupils with more than 32,000 hours of tutoring in 156 primary and secondary schools. Almost two-thirds (61%) of pupils supported were eligible for Pupil Premium funding. The majority of the schools accessing our tutoring have done so with the support of subsidies from the National Tutoring Programme, which, this year, has funded 60% of the cost of tuition.

However, despite the evidence that just 12 hours of tutoring can drive three months’ of additional progress, and with pupils still lagging two months behind pre-pandemic levels of attainment, the Government has decided to end funding for the National Tutoring Programme at the end of next year.

The coalition, led by charities including ourselves, Impetus, Action Tutoring, and Get Further, are asking for the Government instead to scale up and implement the learning from the National Tutoring Programme, targeted at pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, who need the most support.

We are asking for a Tutoring Guarantee in the next Parliament – an entitlement for all young people in receipt of Pupil Premium or equivalent, and who are behind in English or maths, to be offered a high-quality tutoring provision to help close that gap. We are calling on all political parties to support the delivery of such a guarantee over the lifetime of the next Parliament – an offer to an estimated 1.75m disadvantaged young people each year.

We will make the call at a Parliamentary Reception this afternoon to mark the anniversary of the National Tutoring Programme, where the Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, will be the keynote speaker. The event will also see the launch of the report, The Future of Tutoring, commissioned from the polling organisation Public First. 

The new research from Public First reveals that, aside from its benefits for catching up on lost learning, tutoring can also support the post-pandemic crisis of pupil mental health and attendance.

Teachers reported that tutoring led to increased confidence, better pupil engagement in the classroom and reduced anxiety.

[Working with Tutor Trust is] very much like a partnership; working together to enable as much support for students as possible.”
Assistant Headteacher Miles Davies of Co-op Academy Grange in Bradford

What parents say about tutoring

The research found that parents and pupils are overwhelmingly in favour of tutoring.
  • 77 %

    of parents* support an increase in tutoring provision

    *of those who were polled

  • 73 %

    of parents* think that the government should pay for tutoring for pupils from low-income backgrounds

    - this was a view shared by parents across all socio-economic groups.

  • 85 %

    Parents* who said tutoring had positively impacted their child's confidence

  • 68 %

    Parents* who said it had improved attendance

In last year’s GCSEs, the first in three years, Tutor Trust’s Year 11 tutees outperformed their peers both locally and nationally.

Last year we were awarded a plaque in recognition of valued partnership in teacher education by the University of Manchester. Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor of the university, said when making the award that: “Tutor Trust is a pioneer. A Manchester, if not a national, first. It was Tutor Trust that brought tuition – then only the preserve of those families that could afford it – into schools to support those who most needed it, democratising education one pupil at a time.”

Tutoring has become a vital part of our education system and makes an impactful difference in tackling disadvantage. Today’s report demonstrates how crucial it is to retain this advantage for young people who are still suffering the effects of a global pandemic and a disrupted education.

We urge all parties to commit to prioritise tutoring going forwards, so it is available based on need rather than parental ability to pay. Now more than ever we need to level the playing field and it is unarguable that tutoring plays a critical role in this.”
Ed Marsh, Chief Executive, and Abigail Shapiro, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Tutor Trust
It is vitally important that children and young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, get the help they need to be able to succeed in life and play their part in improving the world around them. Tutoring is an intervention that is proven to help children catch up on lost learning and also support their wider needs, like improving attendance and protecting mental health. Tutoring can play a central role in unlocking the ambition of England’s children, if we deliver a Fair Tutoring Future.”
Dame Rachel De Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, endorsing the call for action
Tutoring is a vital and proven intervention for providing effective catch-up support at school and, used effectively, it can make a huge difference for children’s life chances. I have seen some excellent examples of tutoring and hope that the lessons learned from the National Tutoring Programme can ensure that it is used even more effectively in the future. Embedding tutoring into the education landscape as we move forward will be vital if we are to close the gap in attainment for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Robin Walker MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee and former Schools Minister
This and other substantive and credible research has demonstrated that long Covid has hit young people where it damages them most: in their educational experience.

“A reshaped and properly invested tutoring programme is not only essential for re-engaging young people post Covid, but also to provide direct equality of access to essential out of classroom support. Those who can afford it, provide it, those who can’t clearly don’t.

“It is the most stark and challenging divide, underlining societal disadvantage, and we are seeing it reinforced in the availability of extra help and tuition, but only for the few and not the many.”
Former Education Secretary, The Rt Hon. the Lord Blunkett
Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds have fallen further behind their peers during the pandemic, and are at risk of staying there unless the government reverses its decision to remove its funding for schools and colleges to use tutoring. We stand by this call for tutoring to be fully funded so that schools can support the children who have suffered most during the pandemic to reach their full potential.”
Munira Wilson MP, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for education
The front page of the report The Future of Tutoring is boldly coloured in purple, pink and gold.

The Future of Tutoring report

Find out more about why tutoring makes such a vital difference to young people's lives.

Download the full report
  • ‘The Future of Tutoring’ was produced by Public First who were commissioned by a consortium of eight tuition providers to analyse the impact of tuition, delivered by external tuition providers through both the National Tutoring Programme and 16-19 Tuition Fund. The research was focused on understanding how pupils, parents and teachers perceive tutoring, and how the momentum of the last three years of government funding for tutoring could be maintained.
  • The tuition providers involved in the project are Action Tutoring, CoachBright, Equal Education, Get Further, Talent-Ed, The Tutor Trust, Third Space Learning and White Rose Maths.

Read more