At CoachBright, we welcome the announcement from Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education, for a £1 billion Covid catch-up plan for schools. £350 million pounds of that will go towards a National Tutoring Programme (NTP) - a tutoring scheme to provide schools with heavily subsidised one-to-one or small group tutoring to help the most disadvantaged young people catch up.
CoachBright has been lobbying for a National Tutoring Programme since March co-authoring a paper on the need for a service as a result of Coronavirus with Professor Lee Elliot Major OBE and Emily Tyers, Teacher at Ivybridge Community College. See paper here.
Alongside this, a coalition of education leaders and third sector organisations came together to lobby the Department of Education and Treasury for the NTP. This included Robert Halfon (Chair of the Education Select Committee), Anne Longfield (Children’s Commissioner for England) and similar tutoring organisations in the social sector who care deeply about supporting disadvantaged pupils and have a track record of support in this area.
This includes Action Tutoring, Access Project, The Tutor Trust, Equal Education, Get Further, Literacy Pirates, Team Up, TalentEd, Future Frontiers and West London Zone. All are members of the Fair Education Alliance who spearheaded the campaign. Together, we signed an open letter to the Secretary of State for Education calling for a NTP.
We know school leaders in their individual context know their pupils best, which pupils should be targeted, and what topics the sessions should cover. We believe additional high quality 1-1 tutoring that is designed with the school can be a real silver bullet for many pupils from disadvantaged communities.
We welcome the announcement the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), Impetus, Sutton Trust and Nesta will be leading the formation of the NTP as we believe evidence-based quality first implementation will be key.
CoachBright’s own online tutoring pilot
Since 18th March, when schools were told to close, as a social mobility organisation we started providing impactful support for disadvantaged pupils during this time through online tutoring. We know the effects of the virus will have far-reaching learning consequences for our most disadvantaged pupils - upwards of 5 months of learning loss.
Over the last 2 and a half months, we have created and delivered our first ever online tutoring programmes (our previous 6 years of work had been face to face). A university student one-to-one supporting a disadvantaged school pupil in a key subject. We are delighted to have supported over 30 schools and 220 pupils of 1-1 subject specific support during Covid-19.
For context, this academic year we have supported over 1500 pupils from disadvantaged communities.
What we know about 1-1 academic tutoring in our CoachBright programmes:
CoachBright pupils make a third of a grade more progress than their disadvantaged peers in a similar setting.
89% have become a more independent learner as a result of coaching
91% believe the programme has made them more motivated to succeed in their studies
Priya, Year 11 at West Walsall E-ACT Academy says: "With CoachBright, we actually got to have that online support so we could talk with the tutor and get the support that we needed during lockdown. For me, it was in Chemistry. The chance to speak 1-1 was really useful. I just wanted to thank CoachBright for this opportunity because I feel like it's been amazing, I've learnt a lot and it's been a real support really, so thank you very much"
Mark Perry, University of Birmingham student who was a volunteer tutor says "Coming from an underprivileged background myself growing up in Birmingham, I was aware of the barriers which discouraged me to progress into higher education. This amazing experience allowed me to watch my pupil develop leaps and bounds."
At CoachBright, we are absolutely focussed on ensuring the disadvantage gap does not become a gulf. CEO, Robin Chu says: "We know the challenges Covid-19 will have in creating a widening class divide between the haves and have-nots. We're delighted we can offer high quality and low cost tuition for disadvantaged pupils through schools.
We also appreciate pupils from low income backgrounds enjoy the routine, opportunity to interact with a relatable role model and most importantly the attainment benefits of having a tutor/coach. For a National Tutoring Programme to succeed, tutors will need to be rigorously trained, supported and coordinated alongside excellent school staff to be effective. We endorse the announcement of a National Tutoring Programme and believe quality implementation will key to its success.”
More information on the National Tutoring Programme is available on the EEF’s website here.