by Paul Singh

Like many of my brilliant peers, I have experienced different ends of the spectrum in regards to teaching and tutoring. Having worked for Bishop Douglass School, I provided day time catch up support to my students during lunch breaks and outside lessons. This sharply contrasted with private tutoring I provided in the neighbouring area of Highgate. Over time, this experience developed into a motivation and a vision to reimagine the classic tutoring model in the UK. 

Whilst myself and fellow tutors turned charity founders and social entrepreneurs knew that one to one tutoring excelled in pushing students at Eton and Oxbridge,we were driven to see the effects of this en masse amongst children who are the least likely to be admitted to or attend these prestigious institutions. 

Fast forward to nearly a decade later, we are amidst one of the largest announcements by our government or any government in regards to a catch up programme with a fund of £350million specifically for tutoring. This spectacular and welcome announcement was the culmination of efforts from across the sector and in particular a fledgling third sector subset of charities and social enterprises. 

My observation, reflecting on the previous decade, is that tutoring has evolved to a point where  tutoring organisations have developed a private and widespread intervention for children who we felt could/should benefit the most. We feel strongly enough about our equalising mission that we have mobilised together under the Fair Education Alliance to discuss how we can deal with the fall out of the pandemic and best serve the children we have been building a deep understanding of for years. 

At Equal Education our primary focus lies with care-experienced children and those with SEND. I have liaised with colleagues in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia to understand how they approach the complex social issues underlying this group. As a result, I have been following developments with a view to learn from best practice and take inspiration from my colleagues overseas. Back in 2018, we hosted our friends and colleagues from the Department of Education and Training, Victoria, Australia.

We learnt about initiatives of UK origin for care-experienced children in England, being adopted and implemented in Australia. The team shared how they extended and developed their working understanding of trauma and attachment awareness to incorporate a cultural connection. This was specifically driven by the localised care for indigenious children. We have been discussing how tutoring could be built on these initiatives to go from recognising, monitoring and tracking; moving to active and specified interventions. 

I am further inspired and emboldened by announcements in other continents. Which brings about the question, has tutoring come of age? We have learnt that the Dutch government has created a €244million subsidy fund for schools, which is being targeted on tutoring. To counter some of the effects of weeks of home education and the increased risk of inequality of opportunity in education. Further to that former Tenn. Gov Bill Haslam has been vocal about the summer slide for students. He is recruiting 1,000 college students to provide tutoring for up to 5,000 students to help them catch up on what they have missed due to the pandemic, under the Tennessee Tutoring Corps. 

The evolution of the tutoring from the public sector and third sector has been accelerated with the pandemic. Whilst my colleagues who specialise in private tutoring are better placed to say; tutoring has been around for a long time with a common citation referring to Plato tutoring Aristotle. It is only recently we are seeing quick developments in specialised tutoring for vulnerable and disadvantaged children to an extent that never existed before. This holistic levelling up of the industry, for me shows that tutoring really has come of age.