Online tutoring can be a powerful tool to help pupils affected by school closures, study finds

A successful pilot project conducted by the Education Endowment Foundation, Impetus, The Sutton Trust and Nesta has shown that online tutoring can be extremely effective in supporting pupils’ learning that has been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The project aimed to test the feasibility and promise of online tutoring as a way to support learning under lockdown during summer term and holidays. Action Tutoring and four other charities took part in the study to support over 1,300 primary and secondary school pupils earlier in the year.

In total, more than 7,000 lessons were delivered to a variety of year groups, ranging from Year 5 to Year 11. The EEF’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit, an accessible summary of educational research, shows that high-quality tutoring can deliver approximately five months of progress on average.

Implementing learnings from this initial test phase, Action Tutoring then launched its first full online programmes in October. The study showed that online tutoring had a positive impact on the disadvantaged pupils supported.

Nine in ten children say tutoring helps with their schoolwork. Pupils say what they particularly like about tutoring is the one-to-one support for issues they are struggling with, the reduced fear of peer judgment and the flexibility to learn at their own pace.

In the 65 schools that took part in the pilot project, the majority of pupils supported were disadvantaged children – 81% of those in primaries and 69% of those in secondary schools.

The pilot project was co-funded by the EEF, alongside Wellcome Trust, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Hg Foundation, the Dulverton Trust and the Inflexion Foundation and was independently evaluated by NatCen Social Research.

“Online tutoring with Action Tutoring has allowed pupils to get personalised intervention in maths, increasing their engagement in a subject they don’t find easy. The few weeks of online tutoring has made a huge difference in their confidence and attainment in key topics in maths.”

Rakhee Dattani, Head of Maths at Arts and Media School, Islington, London

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP), which aims to make high-quality tutoring available to schools to help disadvantaged pupils whose education has been affected by school closures, will build on the pilot’s findings when it launches on 2nd November.

Professor Becky Francis, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said: “This study shows that online tutoring can be an essential tool to support pupils and teachers this academic year. Until social distancing restrictions relax, online tutoring offers a flexible and much needed way to get tutoring into schools across England.”

Professor Francis added: “Schools are best placed to decide which pupils need help the most and what type of support is suitable. Each child will have different needs – some will respond better to online tuition others to in-person support. This is why the NTP will provide teachers with a menu of options from an approved list of high-quality providers that schools can choose from.”

To join us as an online tutor to help support with the Covid-19 catch up, apply now through our application form.

DAC Beachcroft provide high quality volunteers to help disadvantaged pupils succeed at school

Corporate partnerships are an important part of what allows us at Action Tutoring to make our programmes work effectively, helping us move closer towards our vision of a world in which no child’s life chances are limited by their socio-economic background.

In order to achieve this, we require high quality tutors who demonstrate good subject knowledge, strong communication skills and a real commitment to the pupils that they support.
Over the past three years international legal business, DAC Beachcroft, have engaged their staff to become volunteer tutors with Action Tutoring on our programmes in London and Birmingham.

This year, they have expanded this further to provide tutors in Bristol too. The DAC Beachcroft staff who volunteer with us range from recent graduates to senior partners and have delivered hours of invaluable support to disadvantaged pupils across our regions.

As well as the profound impact that these sessions can have on a young person, we find that the volunteers themselves often gain a lot from the experience through seeing the impact of their support directly; developing their skills and engaging with their local community.

Khurram Shamsee, a Partner at DAC Beachcroft and volunteer tutor for Action Tutoring has spoken about his time volunteering with us. Khurram said: “I’m really glad I signed up… I just think it’s a rewarding thing to do and I’ve got absolutely no regret about making the commitment.”

Action Tutoring would love to hear from other businesses or companies interested in promoting our volunteering opportunity to their employees, as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility.

Employees can either volunteer at a school near their home, or support as a team at a school near the office. This could include volunteering before or after school, during lunchtimes, or at the weekend. For employees, it’s a great opportunity to make use of their skills to benefit the local community.

If you are interesting in finding our more about our work with corporates, do get in touch with our Partnerships and Fundraising Manager, Hannah: hannahoneill@actiontutoring.org.uk

Celebrating Black History Month at Action Tutoring

Action Tutoring Programme Coordinator for Birmingham, Grace Brooks, talks about her experience coming from a mixed heritage background and discusses with colleague Fleur Nicholson, about steps we can take to increase equality and diversity in the school curriculum, in Action Tutoring and in society more widely.

We are finally in October, and at Action Tutoring we’re highlighting the need for reflection and celebration of Black History Month.

As a mixed-race woman, Black History Month for me is about being seen, heard and valued. Although when doing so, we sometimes forget to include those with mixed heritage in this group. Unfortunately, we are all guilty of overlooking certain groups, even within our own community. That is not to say we should pay no attention to Black history, but to say that we should look at all Black history: those from African descent, those from the Caribbean descent, those from mixed descent etc. Black history is our history and mixed heritage history is our history – they are not separate.

Black history is our history and should not be separately taught within our schools nor should you need to wait until university before you can learn about British Black history. So many of us are left unaware of the astonishing impact and contributions of the Black community across our history and our culture, including in our literature.

This absence was highlighted by the recent TeachFirst report ‘Missing pages’, which calls for an increase to the representation of ethnic minority authors in English literature lessons. For example, currently the biggest exam board does not include a single book by a Black author in their English Literature GCSE specifications.

Why can’t we see and teach our children the powerful impact that people of colour have had on our society when everyone was against us? That would personally inspire me if I was a 13-year-old girl, not just the white British topics I was taught in class. It is crucial to tell the whole story from all perspectives and celebrate every achievement and contribution.

We often forget to look at and reflect on how much of an impact people of colour have had and continue to have on our society; we are almost forgotten. We need to provide platforms for Black people to speak up, be recognised and celebrated and be appreciated in our community, and education is one place this can start.

As part of #BlackHistoryMonth, we want to celebrate the inspirational American mathematician and aerospace engineer – Mary Jackson.
Mary is used as a case study in our English Workbook for Primary school pupils – find out more about her work here: https://t.co/ukRMHUSwaC pic.twitter.com/WvSZmrVYKs

— Action Tutoring (@ActionTutoring) October 14, 2020

Enterprises like The Black Curriculum can help to address the lack of British history in our schools.  So that all young people can be educated fully before reaching adulthood. This social enterprise delivers arts-focused Black history programmes to help equip young people, as well as providing teacher training and campaigning to change the curriculum.

We need to educate the younger generation by teaching an accessible curriculum for all, providing all children with a sense of identity and importance in our society. The work The Black Curriculum does, has the potential to inform and educate young people of colour on their own history, as well as their peers’.

The TeachFirst report includes perspectives from four English teachers on why representation matters and how they have introduced a greater diversity of authors in their own lessons. The paper also recommends other proactive measures that could help us progress, including changing the literature specifications for GCSE English, providing access to professional development for teachers and funding for schools to invest in books by ethnic minority authors.

We all need to recognise our privilege and ask ourselves what we will do to positively impact those around us. By acknowledging this you are accepting your responsibility and your potential to make a change. You must then decide on the actions you will take. These actions are not always big; they may be small, such as the way we speak to one another.

We need to ask ourselves: how can we personally take steps to increase equality and diversity? And not just for Black History Month but for every day of the year.

At Action Tutoring, we know we have a part to play in educating pupils. In the short term we are working to review all of our tutoring workbooks to audit their cultural representation and messaging.  Any new resources we produce will follow new diversity criteria.

We are also creating diverse suggested reading lists for pupils. These will also be useful for tutors who may ask us about the kinds of texts they could bring to sessions for ‘reading for pleasure’ activities.

We are also establishing a Diversity and Inclusion working group internally to ensure we make sustained anti-racist action central to how we work.

As part of Black History Month, Action Tutoring is encouraging people to share inspiring stories of Black and mixed heritage figures on social media, to celebrate the outstanding contributions made by Black and mixed heritage communities throughout history. Please tag us in your posts on twitter @ActionTutoring and Instagram @actiontutoringuk.

We’re back! In-school tutoring resumes and online programmes begin

After nearly seven months, it’s great to be back in the classroom. Thanks to the support of our determined volunteer tutors, partner schools and staff team, Action Tutoring is thrilled to be delivering tutoring both online and in person to help disadvantaged pupils catch up.

By the end of next week, thirty-five face-to-face programmes (eight to ten weeks of tutoring sessions) and nearly 20 online tutoring programmes will have begun, with another 36 face-to-face and 22 online tutoring programmes beginning in early November.

Become a volunteer     Partner as a school

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the education of young people across the country. Evidence has shown that disadvantaged pupils, like those supported by Action Tutoring, will be the hardest hit by the crisis. The absence of education, and other means of support at home, like private tutoring, has pushed disadvantaged pupils further behind and widened the attainment gap to an even greater extent.

In March 2020, as a result of the school closures implemented in response to the pandemic, we ceased delivery of our tutoring programmes. Over the following months, we focused our resources on campaigning for catch-up support from the government to help disadvantaged pupils, and on developing our online tutoring provision.

Now, back in schools, focus shifts towards the delivery of more high-quality tutoring, and ensuring that the experience remains a valuable and enjoyable one for both tutors and pupils.

Nargis Tailor, Programme Coordinator for London, facilitated the first online programme this week, which received a great deal of positive feedback from pupils.

She said, “It felt so lovely to be back in schools. After the initial rush to get pupils logged into their virtual classrooms, the Year 11s were totally absorbed in their screens.”

“The chatty and energetic pupils became unexpectedly shy for the initial 10 minutes when they met their tutors for the first time, but once the session had ended, pupils left inspired and keen to learn more. Some of the comments from pupils included ‘I’m learning already’ and ‘my tutor was so nice.'”

Hannah Ground, also a Programme Coordinator in London, observed a similarly positive response to the online format.

She said, “Most pupils at Sydenham School were able to jump straight into the virtual classroom, and quickly picked up how to use and navigate the platform.”

“Initially the room went quiet, as pupils listened to their tutors introduce themselves. As the session progressed, the pupils relaxed into the new experience and it was lovely to hear them joking with their tutors and engaging in the online material.”

She added, “I’m looking forward to seeing how their relationships and subject skills develop throughout the term!”

“Our tutor was really good and I am ready to start tutoring for the year!” 

– Secondary school pupil from Sydenham School, London after completing her first online tutoring session.

While pupils have been responding well to the sessions after months out of the classroom, our volunteers, some delivering tutoring for the very first time, have been impressed by the impact that the experience has had on themselves as tutors.

Following her first session at Greenwood Academy in Birmingham, Programme Coordinator Sumayya Shaikh said, “The programme ran smoothly and the pupils and tutors looked like they got on incredibly well.”

“One moment that really stood out was a conversation with one of our tutors who had recently been made redundant. He said he was grateful for the programme, as he finally got to engage with people and pass on his knowledge as an engineer.”

“He said it’s the best he felt in a long time. I’m glad we are able to make a difference to not only our pupils, but also our tutors,” she added.

With more programmes due to begin over the following weeks, we are looking for more volunteer tutors to join us to deliver tutoring sessions, both in schools and online. As a volunteer, your help could make a difference in allowing pupils to catch up on vital learning, that has been disrupted by the pandemic.

Apply below to become a volunteer tutor and support the education of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in your local community and across the country.

APPLY NOW