News & Insights 3 June 2021

Volunteers’ Week 2021: Thanking our fantastic tutors

Volunteers’ Week takes place 1st-7th June every year and serves as a chance to recognise the fantastic contribution volunteers make to our communities.

This year’s theme is ‘a time to say thanks’, giving an opportunity to thank every individual that has given up their time to help those in need, over what has been an exceptionally difficult year.

Action Tutoring would like to say a massive thank you to every dedicated volunteer tutor for all your support over the past year.

Your contributions have helped disadvantaged young people across England catch up on the learning missed as a result of the pandemic and given pupils a better chance of reaching their full academic potential.

What our volunteers have achieved this year

The past year has been a tumultuous one. The disruption to learning caused by the pandemic and subsequent school closures has impacted disadvantaged pupils significantly and; with the introduction of the National Tutoring Programme; tutoring has been key in attempting to make up for the time lost.

We are so grateful for the contributions of every single volunteer tutor. Your hard work has allowed us to deliver more tutoring sessions and to support more young people than ever before.

So far, this academic year, 2,485 Action Tutoring volunteers have delivered 23,098 sessions to disadvantaged young people across the country!

The impact our volunteers have made

We know that small group tuition is extremely effective in improving both pupils’ grades and their understanding of the subject. A study from the Education Endowment Foundation calculated that an intense programme of one-to-one tuition could add up to five months’ progress to a young person’s schooling.

Every session that is delivered, therefore, offers significant support to a pupil’s learning and so as this number increases, so does the chance of these young people being able to reach their full academic potential.

Action Tutoring Interim CEO, Jen Fox, said: “2,485 is a huge number. With more tutors than ever before, it’s no surprise that Action Tutoring has been able to double in size this year.”

“Our passionate, diverse, committed volunteer army means that almost 5,000 disadvantaged pupils have had the tutoring support they deserve this year.”

Become a volunteer

Moving forward

Our work in levelling the academic playing field isn’t finished. We need your help to increase the amount of tutoring that we are able to provide and to reach more disadvantaged pupils across the country.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer tutor, please fill out our application form.