Volunteer as a Tutor

Action Tutoring partners with primary and secondary schools to deliver tutoring programmes for pupils preparing for their GCSEs and SATs in English and maths. A 'programme' means a term of tutoring at a partner school, with sessions at the same time each week.

As a volunteer, you will be able to choose which programme you are allocated to. All tutoring takes place at school and you will be working in a team alongside other volunteer tutors.

Take a look at our Volunteer Handbook for more details about tutoring with us.

We ask you to commit to attending the same school at the same time each week for an hour, over the course of a school term (8-10 weeks). You will need to attend one of our central training sessions and be willing to put some time into preparing for your sessions.

Consistency and continuity is really important for the delivery of the tutoring to enable our pupils to achieve; you must be able to commit to attending every session before signing up to a programme.

Please note that tutoring sessions usually take place before, shortly after or during the school day. There are occasional tutoring opportunities on Saturdays, but we do not run tutoring sessions in the evenings.  Our programmes run during the school terms so there are no opportunities available over July and August.

If you are a maths tutor you will be covering the basic skills of maths including percentages, fractions, algebra and probability, among others. We have a range of workbooks which are tailored to the ability level of your pupil(s) and include all the answers and workings to support you.

If you are an English tutor, we primarily look to focus on supporting pupils with their reading and writing skills. This could mean helping with spelling, punctuation and grammar, essay writing skills, reading comprehension, and more. We have a range of workbooks to support you with this.

Below you'll find a couple of pages from a selection of our resources for primary and secondary schools.  You will support your pupils to work through these (and your books will include the answers!).

You can apply to become a volunteer tutor all year-round! The first step is to complete our online application form and if accepted, you will be invited to complete an enhanced DBS check and attend one of our training sessions. Following this you will be invited to sign up to a tutoring programme that suits your schedule.

An enhanced DBS check is a criminal record check, which Action Tutoring are required to carry out for all volunteers. DBS checks enable us to make safe recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with children and young people.

Action Tutoring complies with the relevant DBS Code of Practice and undertakes to treat all applicants for positions fairly.

You can read more about the DBS process and what's required here.

You will be given training, resources and will have the support of the Action Tutoring staff, including a Programme Coordinator, who will attend tutoring sessions. If you would like to talk to one of our existing tutors to find out what's involved, please email fleur@actiontutoring.org.uk.

We look for volunteers who have or are studying for a degree (in any subject) and have a B grade (or above) at A Level (or equivalent) in the subject they wish to tutor. English or maths-related A Level subjects are also considered, such as: history, politics or sociology (for English tutors) and physics, chemistry and economics (for maths tutors).

This is to ensure that you are confident and comfortable with the topics you will be tutoring.

As a tutor, you need to have good communication skills and be a fluent English speaker. You’ll need to be willing to make your sessions engaging and interactive. Working with young people requires patience, commitment and resilience – experience working with young people is preferable but not essential.

In addition to helping a young person, we believe there are many benefits for our volunteers. These include: gaining valuable experience in a school (particularly useful for aspiring teachers), a boost to your CV, giving back to your community, a chance to improve your communications and problem solving skills and the opportunity to meet like-minded people.

Hear from Simrat (New York University student) about her experience volunteering with Action Tutoring in London last year:

Within certain guidelines, we are happy to provide a reference once you have completed a programme. You can view our references policy in our policies and procedures booklet here.

Yes we can cover reasonable travel expenses, up to £5 per session. Travel expenses are reimbursed once you have completed a programme, rather than on a week by week basis. Please see our travel expenses policy in our policies and procedures booklet here, for more information. Some volunteers chose not to claim to further support us in our work as a small charity, and this is always appreciated but not expected.

Click here to complete our online volunteer application form and our team will then be in touch with you shortly.

If you would like more information about what being a volunteer entails, you can read a more detailed role description here:

Volunteer Tutor Role Description (85.4 KB)