This project is no longer recruiting.
What is the Get Further’s Tutoring Programme?
Get Further’s GCSE Resit Tuition Programme is a small-group tuition programme designed for post-16 students who are resitting GCSE English and maths. Students are supported by tutors, who go into colleges to work with up to three students per weekly session. Tutors work through a bespoke curriculum with students that is designed by Get Further. The programme aims to increase student knowledge in key areas, along with their attendance, confidence and motivation, leading to improved GCSE attainment.
Who is leading this project?
This project is delivered by Get Further, a charity created to improve attainment for GCSE English and maths resit students from disadvantaged backgrounds in post-16 education. Get Further has extensive experience in supporting pupils through small group tuition.
What will this project look like in your setting?
This project is an individual-level randomised controlled trialAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes.. Students at participating colleges will be allocated to the intervention or control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. at random. Those in the intervention groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the intervention group will receive the programme being tested. will receive Get Further’s Resit Tuition Programme, alongside their regular English or maths lessons. The control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. will continue with their regular English or maths lessons without the additional intervention from Get Further.
Colleges will have a role in supporting the recruitment and retention of students in both the ‘intervention’ and ‘control’ group. They will also have a role in facilitating the delivery of the programme through providing rooms for tutoring to take place, timetabling sessions, and in working with Get Further to facilitate tutors/staff coming on site.
Students receiving Get Further’s GCSE Resit Tuition Programme will attend tuition sessions with Get Further tutors for one hour per week outside of class hours. There will be two start points to the programme, one in September 2025 and the other in January 2026 and the programme will continue until May 2026. Tutors will work through a curriculum with students that is prepared by Get Further, based on the principles of direct instruction/mastery, including atomisation, effective sequencing, modelling, and worked examples, as well as independent practice. There is some flexibility for tutors to adapt these lessons as necessary with learners.
Who can take part?
- All General Further Education colleges and Sixth Form colleges across England.
- Pupils who are in their first year of post-16 study, are resitting GCSE English or maths for the first time, and who are not participating in November 2025 GCSE resits.
- Students who are participating in another GCSE resit tutoring trial are ineligible.
Colleges will be asked to contribute 16% of the usual programme costs. The exact amount will depend on the start date and number of participating learners. Further information will be shared by Get Further once colleges have registered interest in the project.
How can you register your interest?
Complete the short register your interest form at the bottom of this page.
A large proportion of students who resit GCSE English and maths are from a disadvantaged background. While one in three students leave secondary school without passing GCSE English or maths. This number increases to one in two students when including markers of disadvantage.
While Get Further’s GCSE Resit Tuition Programme shows some tentative evidence of some positive effect through comparisons to national resit statistics, it has not been independently evaluated and would benefit from a rigorous trial. Evidence of what works to improve GCSE resit rates is limited and pass rates are poor, so there is a strong case to focus on identifying effective interventions in this area.
The programme will be evaluated by a team led by the University of Warwick using a randomised controlled trialAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes. (RCTAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes.) and Implementation and Process EvaluationAn IPE is used to understand how and why an intervention has (or has not) been successful. Data is analysed to explore programme quality, reach, adaptation and differentiation, as well as setting fidelity and responsiveness to the trial design. (IPE). The independent evaluation will be an efficacy trial, meaning the programme will be tested to see whether it works in ideal, develop-led conditions.
The RCTAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes. will be a two-armed individually randomised trial, with 8,100 students randomly allocated to either receive Get Further’s GCSE Resit Tuition Programme for English, for maths, or act as a control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. where they will not receive the programme and continue with learning as usual The outcomes of interest are GCSE resit results in English or maths.
An IPE will be conducted alongside the RCTAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes. to explore how the programme is implemented, as well as perceptions of the GCSE Resit Tuition Programme.
The evaluation report will be published in Spring 2027.