Education News

Action Tutoring confirmed as National Tutoring Programme Tuition Partner for a further three years

Action Tutoring is thrilled to have been successful in its application to continue as a National Tutoring Programme (NTP) Tuition Partner for the next three years.

The charity has been proud to play its part in the catch up drive, and the support from the National Tutoring Programme in 2020-21 enabled the organisation to double its delivery, benefiting more pupils than ever before.

Following a successful pilot year of the National Tutoring Programme, the Government committed to a further three years of funding and appointed Randstad as its supplier. The process then began to recruit the approved Tuition Partners to deliver over this period.

With the support of the NTP, Action Tutoring hopes to increase its reach by an additional 60% this academic year and provide vital tutoring support for nearly 8,500 pupils. The charity aims to help those pupils who have been the hardest hit by the crisis, building their confidence and academic knowledge to enable them to reach their potential.

Action Tutoring can’t achieve these goals by itself, it needs the support of over 3,500 volunteer tutors to deliver the sessions.

With hundreds of opportunities to get involved across the country and online, it’s never been easier to give back. Just an hour a week of tutoring will help support a pupil to progress academically and make up for the time they have lost through the pandemic.

Apply now to become a volunteer tutor to start tutoring this academic year. Similarly, if you are interested in partnering with us as a school, please complete our initial enquiry form.

DAC Beachcroft strengthens support to Action Tutoring through a grant to fund our expansion across northern regions

International law firm DAC Beachcroft announced it is providing Action Tutoring with a multi-year grant to fund a national expansion project.

The grant will support a ‘northern-belt’ programme, which will help us expand the offer of tutoring support to more disadvantaged school pupils across the north of England.

DACB first formed a corporate partnership with Action Tutoring two years ago, to provide English and Maths tutoring support to disadvantaged pupils in primary and secondary schools.

When we were named as one of the government’s National Tutoring Programme Tuition Partners to help disadvantaged school children to continue learning during lockdown, DACB expanded its support and today has 100 Action Tutoring volunteers in Bristol, London, Birmingham and Newcastle.

This constitutes five per cent of Action Tutoring’s UK-wide volunteering pool and makes DACB one of our largest corporate volunteering partners. In addition, the firm took proactive steps to donate laptops to schools for children without access to computers for home-learning.

Jen Fox, interim-CEO at Action Tutoring, says: “Throughout the pandemic it has been especially difficult for children who have not had the means to continue learning from home. During this time there has been a clear gap across the ‘northern belt’ of the UK, so we are keen to increase the number of tutoring programmes we’re delivering in this area to support more of the pupils who’ve been impacted. This grant is vital in helping us to realise our strategy of increasing the number of schools we work with by 60%, and will provide funding security as we move closer towards our vision of a world in which no child’s life chances are limited by their socio-economic background.

“DAC Beachcroft already has a large number of colleagues volunteering with us, ranging from recent graduates to members of the firm’s senior management team, who have delivered hours of invaluable support to disadvantaged pupils across our regions, and we would like to thank the firm for its ongoing support. Corporate partnerships are an important part of what allows us at Action Tutoring to make our programmes work effectively.”

Virginia Clegg, Senior Partner at DAC Beachcroft, volunteers as a tutor on one of our English programmes, delivering online sessions to pupils in London. She says: “Our work with Action Tutoring is an important part of our commitment to Corporate Responsibility and Inclusion and is enabling us to directly support our communities by helping disadvantaged children across the UK.

“We are delighted to extend our support for Action Tutoring through long term funding. We are providing the charity with the certainty needed to enable it to continue to grow.”

If you are interested in getting involved as a corporate partner, please contact our Partnerships and Fundraising Manager, Hannah O’Neill hannahoneill@actiontutoring.org.uk

GCSE Results Day: Celebrating the the commitment and resilience of our pupils over a difficult year

Today is GCSE Results Day, a key date in our calendar where we pause to celebrate the achievements of our incredible pupils.

Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, we are reflecting on the disruption the pandemic has caused to their education at such a crucial time in their lives. Pupils have continued to lose vital months of learning in the classroom and national examinations have been cancelled again.

Despite these uncertainties we want to celebrate the commitment and resilience of this year’s pupil cohort in an incredibly challenging year. They have engaged with our sessions and continued to seek help, while managing the external disruption and pressures surrounding them.

We also want to thank our amazing volunteers who have given so much support, encouragement and positivity to these young people. They have made a significant difference to their lives this year and to their futures. Thank you for remaining committed to our work and the charity as we all navigated the obstacles together.

GCSE grading

The GCSEs pupils are awarded today have been decided by their teachers. We recognise this wasn’t an easy decision for the Government to make or an easy process for the teachers who have already been burdened with so much this year. However, we are concerned the disadvantaged pupils we support won’t have been fairly assessed.

Research shows disadvantaged young people are more likely to be under-predicted by their teachers than their peers and they generally do better when they sit their exams than when they are assessed by teachers.

Disadvantaged pupils have also been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, due to lack of support and access to tech at home and may have been less likely to return to schools once they reopened. This will have impacted the progress they made and the opportunities to demonstrate their academic abilities to their teachers.

Being undermarked could severely affect the future opportunities available to our pupils and their confidence to progress.
We are proud of our pupils and incredibly grateful to our tutors for what they’ve achieved this year.

What’s next?

Covid has continued to have a significant impact on education, growing the academic attainment gap. We want to stop this growth in its tracks and minimise, as far as possible, the damage the pandemic has caused. We can’t do this on our own.

We need more volunteers than ever before to reach as many disadvantaged pupils as possible and give them the sustained catch-up support they need and deserve. We have hundreds of opportunities to get involved, both through face to face tutoring and online – it’s now easier than ever to help out. If you, or anyone you know, can help this year, apply now!

 Become a volunteer

How to give back to your community as a full-time professional

Volunteer tutor, John Uren, describes his experience balancing tutoring on an Action Tutoring programme with working for the Civil Service.

For an hour every Thursday afternoon, you’ll find me tutoring English Language online to a pair of students at a comprehensive school in South London.

Am I a professional tutor? No. Do I have years of experience tutoring as a side-hustle? No. Am I equipped with the tools, training and safe-guarding knowledge to tutor? Yes.

I easily balance volunteering with my work commitments, and Action Tutoring even cover the cost of a DBS check!

This is arranged through Action Tutoring. A national education charity dedicated to supporting young people facing socio-economic disadvantages to achieve a meaningful level of academic attainment. This enables them to progress in education, employment or training. Action Tutoring do this by pairing high-quality volunteer tutors with primary and secondary school pupils to help build maths or English subject knowledge, confidence and resilience.

Anyone can volunteer and it’s just one hour per week. Programmes last over school terms, and all training, resources and safeguarding information are provided. I easily balance volunteering with my work commitments, and Action Tutoring even cover the cost of a DBS check!

 Become a volunteer

After completing my training with Action Tutoring, I remember being particularly nervous ahead of my first lesson. What if I won’t know what to do? What if the pupils don’t like me? What if they think I’m an idiot? But it was a brilliant experience, and I have thoroughly enjoyed tutoring ever since.

I admit that not all of my lessons run perfectly, yet over time, it has been incredibly rewarding to see my pupils gain confidence in their abilities and grasp a greater understanding of the topic. You don’t need to be an Einstein or Shakespeare to deliver effective lessons!

I’ve gained confidence, and the skills I’ve developed are transferable to many other areas of life.

Leading a tutoring session each week also provides plenty of opportunity for personal development! Including understanding how to pace and structure a lesson, how to keep your pupils engaged, and how to communicate difficult concepts simply. I’ve gained confidence, and the skills I’ve developed are transferable to many other areas of life.

Did you know? Before the pandemic, disadvantaged pupils were, on average, already 18 months behind their non-disadvantaged peers by the end of secondary school. Projections suggest that school closures could widen this gap by as much as 75%. Every session Action Tutoring provides is vital in closing this gap.

If you’re interested in signing up to volunteer with Action Tutoring, or just looking for more information, please fill out the following application form. This is a fun, interesting and important way to volunteer – open to all!

Action Tutoring’s end of year report: Thanking volunteers and supporters for contributing to a remarkable year for the charity

As the 2020-21 academic year comes to an end, we reflect on what has been achieved at Action Tutoring over the last year, in the face of huge challenges, and look ahead to being able to deliver tutoring sessions to even more pupils in the future.

2020-21 has been a remarkable year for Action Tutoring. It has seen the charity double in size, reaching more pupils and engaging more volunteers than ever before; it launched and rolled out its online delivery, which became the predominant delivery method, and it managed the significant disruption of Covid-19, including national school closures.

The charity would like to recognise these achievements but, more importantly, take an opportunity to thank all of its volunteers and supporters for remaining resilient and delivering so much in the face of such challenges.

Partner as a school         Become a volunteer

Action Tutoring Interim CEO, Jen Fox, said, ‘We have launched in new cities, reached our ten-year milestone, and continuously developed and expanded our new online provision with the tireless support of tutors. For four weeks in February and March, we even brought Action Tutoring into pupils’ homes.

‘We have forged more new relationships than ever and, as part of the National Tutoring Programme, opened the classroom doors to more than 5,400 pupils in nearly 160 schools up and down England. This year alone, 2,700 tutors have taken part, either stepping back into the classroom or logging into one from afar.’

‘We would like to thank everyone involved for the part you’ve played, and for your unwavering belief in pupils’ potential and the power of tuition to help them get there.’

To hear more from Jen about what has happened at Action Tutoring over this academic year please read our most recent newsletter and subscribe for future newsletters, to keep up to date with what’s happening Action Tutoring.

Academic year 2020-21 review:

When the autumn term began in September 2020, we were able to return to schools and begin delivering tutoring both online and in person to help disadvantaged pupils catch up.
As more Covid-19 restrictions were introduced, with national lockdowns imposed in November 2020 and January 2021, Action Tutoring made the decision to pause all in-person volunteering during this time. We had to adapt our tutoring delivery to ensure that our pupils were still able to receive academic support, despite the restrictions.

Action Tutoring was able to offer online sessions to pupils based at home after a successful pilot programme in the summer and approval from the National Tutoring Programme. With the introduction of online tutoring, 84% of our sessions were delivered online over the course of the year, compared to 0% in the previous academic year.

The ability for our programmes to reach so many pupils was made possible by support from the National Tutoring Programme, which has meant that we have been able to grow more than ever before. Being an NTP Tuition Partner for this academic year has enabled us to support many more disadvantaged pupils; those who have been significantly impacted by the pandemic.

The last year has been an uncertain one, with school closures and further disruptions to learning having impacted disadvantaged pupils significantly. As a charity, we are proud of what has been achieved in response to the pandemic and are committed to helping pupils make up for the time lost.

Looking ahead

Over the next year, we plan to expand our reach further, meaning that we are able to support even more disadvantaged young people in additional regions across the country.

We look forward to submitting our application to continue as an NTP Tuition Partner over the next three years, which will allow us to offer more schools access to our programmes, while ensuring that this growth is manageable.

This expansion means that we need more tutors than ever before. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer tutor for next academic year, please apply now.

We are also looking for more schools that would like to get involved. If you are interested in partnering with us as a school, please complete our initial enquiry form.

Partner as a school         Become a volunteer

Seven connections to help us create change

Learn about Action Tutoring’s conversations with local MPs this summer.

We know that what happens on programmes is important. But in an average session, do the pupils and their tutors feel how significant their actions truly are?

Extra marks are gained, concepts are grasped for the first time, new future chances open up slightly more each time a pupil turns up and tries. But beyond individual growth, what happens matters on a greater scale. Everyone involved in our programmes is part of a nationwide movement, where people show up in the belief that a great education can make a more equal society.

Sometimes an opportunity arrives to show pupils and tutors that their efforts are being noticed. At 12pm on Friday 2nd July our Programme Coordinator, Sam, was about to set up for the usual afternoon session at Heathfield Primary School in Nottingham. Things felt a little different, though; two journalists and a camera person were expected at the school reception. The Member of Parliament for Nottingham North, Alex Norris, and our Interim CEO, Jen, would soon be arriving.

Not long after our first programme launched in Nottingham in 2019, Alex agreed to visit an Action Tutoring partner school to see the work being done. When the pandemic closed school doors, the visit couldn’t go ahead. Alex still helped us to get the word out to others at a crucial time via his newsletter.

It was an exciting moment, then, to finally welcome Alex to a session at Heathfield Primary School in July this year. Sam told us about the atmosphere on the day. “The pupils buzzed with a mixture of excitement and nervousness at the opportunity. Their heads were down and focused despite copious distractions. Some were even more studious than usual in a bid to impress their local representative!”

This was a chance for everyone to celebrate the admirable effort pupils had made since November. Sam could see how motivated they were to show off their work and quiz the MP. “The challenging questions they posed to Alex were certainly testament of this, as well as their working-strewn whiteboards which they returned to me at the end of the session.”

Less than a week later, a similar moment was about to happen at Ark Victoria Primary Academy in Birmingham. The committed MP for Yardley, Jess Phillips, had already witnessed local tutors working with pupils at another partner school back in 2017. But this time, circumstances were quite different. At 8am on Thursday 8th July, just before Jess arrived, tutors were logging in from Birmingham, Cambridgeshire, Exeter and beyond, ready to lead a productive and joyful final session with the Year 6s at Ark Victoria.

Justina has been tutoring at the school since last November and helped her pupils formulate questions to ask Jess Phillips during the visit. “It has been an incredibly rewarding experience to volunteer and support the learning of year six pupils remotely, at a primary school local to me in Birmingham.

“Despite the disruption caused by the pandemic over the last year, my pupils have shown enthusiasm, been willing to learn and have continued to make progress. I’m really looking forward to next year.”

This was the last session for Year 6 at Ark Vitoria after a big year. Another exceptional tutor, Elaine, has been on this journey with the pupils whilst living elsewhere in the country. “As the school year draws to a close, I am really reflecting on how lucky I have been to be able to work with the pupils at Ark Victoria Primary. They have been so cheerful and worked so hard – a great reminder to try our best when sometimes things seem too difficult. I work with Action Tutoring because I want to help young people achieve their best and am always amazed by how receptive the pupils are to the tuition – they always make me want to do more.”

Action Tutoring is hugely grateful to Alex Norris and Jess Phillips for their time and support for these pupils. Their active interest in our work locally has provided a special end to a year of hard work by all involved in our programmes. It has also already helped Action Tutoring forge new connections in the wider community.

Action Tutoring reaches out to local leaders each year, to highlight the benefits of our work and seek support in raising awareness of what we do. This summer, Action Tutoring has met with seven MPs nation-wide to share the progress its pupils are making in their constituency, despite the additional barriers these pupils face. This seven includes two members of the House of Commons Education Select Committee. Programmes succeed because of the hard work of people in the community – whether that’s the young people themselves, volunteer tutors or the essential school team. These conversations have helped us celebrate and showcase these efforts. Going forward, we hope that deepening these connections will help us to sustain and grow the impact of our work for the unique and vibrant children and young people on our programmes.

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National Numeracy Day 2021: Encouraging maths skills for everyday life

Wednesday 19th May 2021 marks National Numeracy Day, a national campaign that focuses on building a love of maths among school children and encouraging adults to become more confident with numbers.

At Action Tutoring, we understand the value of developing numeracy skills for everyday life. With the help of our dedicated volunteer maths tutors, we have delivered a total of 76,417 maths sessions to disadvantaged pupils across the country over the last ten years.

As part of National Numeracy Day, we spoke to two of our dedicated volunteer maths tutors, Ceri and Ediho, about the importance of developing numeracy skills, how tutoring can support young people with maths and why they decided to offer there help as volunteer tutors.

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Ediho Lokanga

Ceri Bunnage

Why do you think feeling confident with numbers is important for young people?

E: Most people do not realise that mathematics is used in everyday life and that wherever we go, we deal with it in one way or another. Good numeracy skills are essential for shopping, saving, renting a house or taking a mortgage. We all need to master basic numeracy to solve some of the issues we face daily.

How do you use maths in your everyday life?

C: I use maths to manage my time, for example how long I will work and when I have time to relax, as well as when buying my food and deciding if I have the extra money to splurge on treats. I also use maths when planning trips – I think about what time I must leave to arrive somewhere at a particular time, based on how long it takes to get there.

What is your favourite maths topic?

C: My favourite maths topic would be algebra – I find that they are like puzzles that I can solve!

E: I like differential equations, as I can use these equations to help me solve mathematical and physical problems.

What made you want to become a volunteer maths tutor?

C: I wanted to be able to help the pupils that need that little bit of extra support in order to shine, just as I needed the same for English due to my Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.

E: I wanted to pass on what I know and what I have learned over the years. I am aware that many young people struggle with mathematics, so I felt compelled to try and help them with this. Above all, it is a joy to know that you are making a change in helping somebody achieve their ambition, become a better learner and master a new topic.

It is a joy to know that you are making a change in helping somebody achieve their ambition, become a better learner and master a new topic.

How do you think tutoring can help young people improve their numeracy skills?

C: I believe that there are many different learning styles and that not everyone benefits from regular classroom learning to the same degree. More focused learning like small group tuition can benefit some pupils greatly. There is also the fact that many pupils just need a bit of consolidation of their numeracy skills through repetition, which can be achieved through tutoring.

How can parents help support their children with maths?

C: I believe that a good way to support children with their maths is to have them use it in real life. For example, when shopping, they could be given a £5 note and allowed to pick their desserts, which can’t exceed that amount. This will give the children some joy (because it’s dessert!) but also means they need to do some maths to work out what they can purchase.

E: Parents need to be involved in the process of exploring and learning mathematics with their children. Young people should be encouraged to explore everyday mathematics and discuss real life examples as a family.

Any top tips for young people who struggle with numeracy?

C: For children struggling with maths, my suggestion is to split questions into smaller steps so that they are easier to work with. If you are struggling, smaller numbers can be easier to work with and though this makes the problem longer to work through, it can be simpler to solve.

E: Make sure that you always break down instructions before tackling any problems, talk to your parents or teachers about the best techniques you could use and be positive and optimistic that problems are there to be solved and that there are techniques that you can use to do this.

If you would like to support disadvantaged young people with their numeracy skills, apply now to become a volunteer maths tutor using the link below.

Become a volunteer

Action Tutoring announced as an official National Tutoring Programme Tuition Partner

If you cast your mind back to the warmer and lighter days of June, you might well remember that the government announced a large package of support to help children catch up on the lost learning from Covid-19, including announcing the introduction of a National Tutoring Programme (NTP).

Action Tutoring played an active role campaigning for this initiative, culminating in giving evidence to the government’s education select committee in early June on the impact of Covid-19 on pupils and how a programme like ours could be scaled up.

To get a programme of this size and scale off the ground inevitably takes time, but today we are thrilled to share that Action Tutoring has been approved as a National Tutoring Programme Tuition Partner.

We know the NTP received a large volume of applications, only taking forward a small number that met the quality and scale criteria and we are very proud to have made the final provider list.

Closing the attainment gap through tutoring

Long before the NTP was announced by the government, Action Tutoring’s mission was to make the benefits of tutoring available to those that couldn’t otherwise afford it, ultimately to help narrow the attainment gap and give pupils the best possible chance of progressing well to further education, employment or training. That’s always been our mission and the NTP doesn’t change that.

We believe though that what it does change is the public recognition of the importance of this mission, why it’s a good idea not just for the individual, but for society as a whole and the potential to scale it to have a national impact.

Since we registered as a charity in 2012 and particularly since we began working with Impetus in 2014 we have developed and refined an impactful, proven tutoring model that’s delivering results for children from disadvantaged backgrounds at risk of not succeeding in English and maths.

To do that hasn’t been easy. Understandably, pupils don’t always want extra lessons in a subject they are likely finding difficult. Schools have a lot of pressure and demands and making partnerships between schools and external organisation work well requires effort on both sides. Finally, none of our work would have been possible without the huge numbers of high quality volunteers signing up to tutor with us.

“Our children need champions. Champions – who never give up on them, who understand the power of relationships and insist they become the best they can possibly be. That’s just what the volunteers from Action Tutoring are doing.”
– Lynne Gavin, Headteacher, Pakeman Primary School

But over the years, we’ve learnt what works and we’re excited to now be able to deliver that on a much larger scale, including expanding our geographical reach and significantly expanding our online tutoring.

Expanding Action Tutoring’s work across England

Our ambition through the NTP is to double our reach and the NTP is giving us the support to do this, and indeed the scale for other organisations too, to help us grow at a rate we couldn’t on our own in order to make the benefits of tutoring as widely available as possible.

Partner as a school     Become a volunteer

A recent Bloomberg article has highlighted the scale of the NTP as a great education experiment that could be the game changer needed for social mobility. At Action Tutoring, we certainly believe that has the potential to be the case.

There is fantastic evidence that tutoring works; that’s precisely why so many parents will pay for it for their children. But the tutoring industry will only be a driver of widening the gap in social mobility if it is not made available to those that can’t afford it too, especially those that are struggling most in their education.

That’s why Action Tutoring was founded and we’ve built strong evidence we can make tutoring work for disadvantaged pupils to drive results and close the attainment gap.

Action Tutoring commissioned an external evaluator, NIESR, to carry out an evaluation of the work we do with our pupils. The headline results, from this piece of work, suggested that:

• The programme has a positive impact on GCSE point scores equivalent to 1/3 of a grade with just 5-6 sessions.
• For those pupils who attend 7-8 sessions an additional 1/2 a grade progress was found.

For context, typically, in a whole academic year, schools would expect pupils to make one grade of progress outlining the impact tutoring, and in particular, our work has been having on disadvantaged pupils.

Now, through the NTP there is an opportunity for this work to be delivered on a significantly bigger scale.

The National Tutoring Programme must continue beyond next summer

In order for the benefits of the NTP to be embedded and make a game changing difference to social mobility, it will need to run for more than a year and while we’re delighted today to be beginning our journey as an NTP Tuition Partner, we hope it won’t be one that finishes next summer.

The NTP has been kickstarted by the need for covid catch up; with covid highlighting just how big the inequalities in our society are for children and young people. But prior to covid the UK already had one of the largest attainment gaps in the developed world and evidence from the EPI has shown that in recent years the progress to close that gap has slowed. If the NTP is extended, it has the potential not just to support covid catch up, but to actually help close the UKs attainment gap significantly further. Progress on that really would be something huge to celebrate, benefiting wider society as well as individuals.

So as this new ‘education experiment’ gets underway, we look forward to playing our part for the long term, to ensure that all pupils, regardless of their background, are supported to achieve the best they possibly can.

Partner as a school     Become a volunteer

For more information about the National Tutoring Programme, please visit our dedicated page.

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

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.

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