Four year six pupils in blue school uniforms sat at a table. They are taking part in a small-group tuition session in a primary school.

Education Endowment Foundation recognises our work

The Education Endowment Foundation recognises our strongly evidence-based tuition

Published:

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The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has highlighted Tutor Trust as one of the standout programmes on their relaunched Promising Programmes list

The Promising Programmes are evidence-based and support high-quality teaching, targeted academic support or wider school strategies. All those featured have been tested by the EEF and show promising results on pupil attainment. The EEF describes the Promising Programmes as: “A key resource for making informed decisions about Pupil Premium spending.”

We were named a Promising Programme following successful results from our first randomised control trial (RCT) that showed Year 6 pupils making three months’ additional progress in maths after 12 hours of our tuition. 

The EEF gives our programme a high security rating (meaning the findings are robust).

Our trial

We took part in an effectiveness trial, which demonstrated that our sessions have the potential to cost-effectively improve attainment for children and young people. In order to achieve this, programmes must be independently and robustly evaluated through at least one randomised controlled trial.
  • 105

    Schools

    105 schools across Greater Manchester and Leeds received Tutor Trust sessions as part of the trial.

  • 43 %

    Free school meals

    43% of the pupils in the trial schools were eligible for free school meals. This is higher than the national average.

  • 92 %

    Ofsted 'Good' or 'Outstanding'

    92% of the schools involved were Ofsted-rated Good or Outstanding schools. This is slightly higher than national average.

We are proud that our tuition is recognised as a Promising Programme by the EEF. The trial clearly shows the impact our trained tutors’ high-quality, personalised support can have, as it helps bridge educational gaps and foster significant academic improvement.”
Abigail Shapiro, Co-Founder and Executive Director

The EEF said of the Tutor Trust trial:

“These findings have a high security rating achieving four padlocks (out of five), meaning we are confident that this difference was due to the intervention and not to other factors. The result was similar when looking only at children eligible for free school meals. There was also an indication that there may have been positive spillover effects to reading, and exploratory analysis suggested that the approach may be particularly beneficial for those with lower prior attainment. These positive results have led EEF to designate this as a ​‘Promising Programme’.”

What makes a Promising Programme

Each Promising Programme has to satisfy the following criteria: 

  • Impact. The programme must have secured at least one month’s additional progress for the children and young people that took part, compared to a comparison group of pupils (the ​‘control group’). The wider evaluation findings must also paint a consistent story of positive impact. 
  • Cost. This positive impact needs to be delivered cost effectively. 
  • Implementation. The programme must have been well received and implemented, with schools and settings able to deliver the programme as intended.
  • Strength of evidence. Our evaluation of the programme needs to have achieved an EEF security rating of at least three ​‘padlocks’ out of five, meaning it has moderate or high security. We also look at the sample of schools and settings in the evaluation to make sure results are generalisable to a wider population of schools and settings.

Since 2011, the EEF has published findings from over a hundred independent evaluations of programmes and approaches that aim to raise attainment of children and young people. 

If you’d like to find out more about our work in schools, please contact the team.

A tutor smiles at a young pupil

Our impact

Tutor Trust are deeply committed to evidence-based practice and to ensuring every hour a tutor spends with a young person has a positive impact on attainment, confidence and enjoyment of learning. We are unique in the UK in having positive results from…

A young pupil points at a laptop in a lesson with her tutor.

Our RCT evidence

Tutor Trust is unique in the UK education sector in having successful results from two Randomised Control Trials to our name. These findings inform all our work.

A female tutor wearing glasses is sat with three primary aged pupils around a desk. She is explaining a concept. The pupils are listening. In the back there is a colourful 'Welcome to Year 6' display on the wall.

Primary school FAQ

We answer primary schools' most common questions about tutoring with Tutor Trust. If you have other questions, please contact us and somebody will be in touch within one working day.