The Tutor Trust provides affordable tuition to primary and secondary schools, and post-16 settings, by recruiting and training university students as paid tutors. The Tutor Trust offers maths, English, and science tuition, but the version trialled here was maths tuition aiming to improve the maths attainment of Year 6 pupils (aged 10 – 11) in disadvantaged schools who were working below age-expected levels. Children received 12 hours of tuition, usually one hour per week for 12 weeks in groups of three, during the school day.
There is good evidence that one-to-one and small group tuition can have a positive impact on attainment: EEF’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit shows that tutoring interventions can have a high impact on pupil outcomes.
EEF first trialled the Tutor Trust primary programme at efficacy level, however due to the study’s design, the evaluation did not provide a secure estimate of the impact of the project on pupil outcomes. EEF then funded a re-trial of the programme at effectiveness level, meaning a trial of the programme with a larger number of schools in circumstances that are as close as possible to everyday conditions.
The effectiveness trial found that children who received tutoring from Tutor Trust made three months’ additional progress, with attainment measured using Key Stage 2 maths scores. These findings have a high security rating achieving four padlocks, meaning we are confident that this difference was due to the intervention and not to other factors The result was similar when looking only at children eligible for free school meals. There was also an indication that there may have been positive spillover effects to Reading, and exploratory analysis suggested that the approach may be particularly beneficial for those with lower prior attainment. These positive results have led EEF to designate this as a ‘Promising Programme’.
In addition, The Tutor Trust programme was part of a ‘nimble randomised controlled trial’ during the delivery of the National Tutoring Programme (Tuition Partners), in which different strategies to engage pupils in tutoring were evaluated. In this case, a survey was conducted of tutors and pupils’ personal interests, which was used to highlight similar interests. This led to increased attendance of pupils in tutoring sessions. This trial included both primary and secondary schools, suggesting this approach may be effective in improving attendance across both school phases.
- This was an effectiveness trial, that took place in 105 schools. The schools were located in Greater Manchester and Leeds.
- 43% of the pupils in the trial schools were eligible for FSM. This is higher than national average.
- 92% of the schools involved were Ofsted-rated Good or Outstanding schools. This is slightly higher than national average.
In the trial, the majority of tuition sessions took place during the school day, with pupils being withdrawn from lessons or during break/lunch time (rather than maths lessons). Tutoring sessions took place in libraries, resource rooms and other shared spaces within the participating schools. Other tuition sessions took place after school or during the Easter school holidays.
Sessions were provided on a maximum ratio of one tutor to three pupils, as determined by the class teacher. In keeping with the Tutor Trust approach, a degree of flexibility was allowed in terms of the groupings of pupils and the tutor to tutee ratio (1:1, 1:2 or 1:3), but most were 1:3.
Tutors were either provided materials by the class teacher or they developed their own session plans under guidance from the class teachers. Maintaining continuity between classroom teaching and tutoring sessions was seen to be critical to successful delivery. This required effective communication between the class teacher and tutor, particularly regarding specific vocabulary and methods of teaching key mathematical concepts.
Tutored pupils and their teachers consistently reported increased pupil confidence. Some extremely positive examples of tutoring were observed where productive relationships had been developed between tutors and tutees. Teachers reported that they valued the presence of an additional adult to support pupils with their maths and KS2 preparation.
The version of Tutor Trust tutoring available to schools now is very similar to what was trialled, ensuring at least 12 hours of tuition takes place per pupil for impact (Tutor Trust typically recommend 15 hours of tutoring to be scheduled to account for any absences). A tutor:pupil ratio of 1:3 is the most popular group size but Tutor Trust are now offering 1:4 tutoring. Current Tutor Trust programmes have infrastructure built in to ensure good communication between the tutor and the class teacher, given this was such a key element of success in the trial, and also approaches to highlight similar interests between tutors and pupils that was found to be effective in increasing attendance in an EEF evaluation.
For the programme as trialled in the evaluation, the total cost per pupil to deliver the tutoring was £112, assuming 12 hours of tuition and a ratio of one tutor to three pupils (the most common arrangement in this trial). The cost of Tutor Trust is flexible and depends on a range of factors, including the tutor-to-pupil ratio selected by the school.
This is an estimate of holistic school costs to implement the programme at the time of the evaluation, schools will need to check the current cost of the programme through Tutor Trust.
Tutor Trust tutoring is available to schools in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, West Yorkshire and the Tees Valley. Tutoring is offered across primary and secondary phases, in a range of subjects. Tutor Trust ask that if a school is not in the top quartile of schools with Pupil Premium funding in the region, that 75% of young people put forward for tutoring are receiving Pupil Premium Funding, in line with their charitable mission.
EEF has also trialled a secondary version of Tutor Trust, however unfortunately the results were not secure enough for EEF to be conclusive of impact.
Schools can find out more on the Tutor Trust website.
For schools in other areas, effective features of high impact tutoring are summarised in our Teaching and Learning Toolkit. We have also distilled key learnings from the evidence on implementing effective tutoring in a guide: Making a Difference with Effective Tutoring.