Tutor Trust Secondary: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary

Matthew Walker, Jo Morrison, Helen Aston, Rose Cook, Emily Buchanan

15 July 2015

The Tutor Trust is a Manchester-based charity that aims to provide affordable small group and one-to-one tuition to schools.

This three-year evaluation assessed the impact of the Tutor Trust on the English and mathematics GCSE results of 1,029 Year 11 pupils. The evaluation also explored schools’ perceptions of the need for affordable tuition and their assessment of the quality of the service provided.

The project was funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), Manchester City Council and payments from participating schools. The findings from a separate evaluation of the impact of the tuition on the English and mathematics attainment of Year 6 and Year 7 pupils is also available.

A research brief of this report is available on the EEF website

Key Findings

  • Due to the limitations of the study design and the absence of a high-quality comparison group, this evaluation has not provided a secure estimate of the impact of the project on academic outcomes.
  • Participating pupils achieved slightly higher mathematics GCSE scores than pupils in the comparison group, and lower English GCSE scores than pupils in the comparison group. However, it is not possible to attribute either change to the tuition provided.
  • The schools involved in qualitative interviews were positive about the tuition, keen to work with the Tutor Trust again, and largely confident that the tuition was beneficial for their pupils.
  • It is recommended that the Tutor Trust continues to monitor tutor performance and identifies mechanisms to increase the consistency of tuition. Schools should be active participants in this process and classroom teachers need to be involved in the planning and management of tuition to ensure that in all cases tuition complements work in the classroom.

Additional information

Tutor Trust Secondary

Related Titles

Tutor Trust Secondary , Tutor Trust Primary

Sponsor Details

Education Endownment Foundation