Less than half of pupils who received tutoring were eligible for pupil premium

The NFER has published a report with findings into the evaluation of the National Tutoring Programme 2020/21. It looked at how students eligible for pupil premium performed through the two pillars in the 2020-21 academic year – tuition partners, run by the Education Endowment Foundation and academic mentors, run by Teach First.

The evaluation found that 232,892 unique pupils were enrolled onto the tuition partner programme, with just under half (46%) eligible for pupil premium funding.

Meanwhile, 6,082 schools signed up to receive tutoring through the tuition partners pillar, and over half of these signed up schools (59%) had 24% or more pupil premium pupils.

The evaluation did find that higher amounts of tutoring were related to better assessment scores in English in primary schools, and with better teacher assessed grades for Year 11s in maths and English.

In schools with a higher proportion of pupil premium-eligible pupils taking part in tutoring through Tuition Partners, the programme had a positive impact on Year 11 Teacher Assessed Grades (TAGs) in English and in maths. This analysis was based on a smaller sample of schools with some different characteristics to all tuition partner schools, and so may not be generalisable to all tuition partner schools.
    
Most schools were satisfied with the quality of tuition (80 per cent of school leads were either ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ satisfied).

Regarding Academic Mentors (AM), the evaluation was unable to conclude, with any certainty, whether or not academic mentoring had an impact on the English and maths attainment outcomes of those pupils who received it.

The NFER recommends that future programmes should either clearly define for whom they are designed, or acknowledge that schools may have different views about which of their pupils most need and would benefit from tuition.

More should be done to target support at disadvantaged pupils, and schools need greater clarity about the expectations of their role in managing and delivering (different kinds of) tuition and, where necessary, additional support for doing so. Schools and tutors need to work together on how best to ensure tutoring is aligned with classroom teaching, tailored to pupils’ needs, and that pupils complete their tuition.

The NFER also recommends a programme of evaluation should be developed to help explore which models of tutoring are most effective for which pupils and in what circumstances. This could evaluate different types of tutoring through a range of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs).