Ofsted’s review of tutoring in schools

We published an independent research report into our findings about the tutoring programme in October 22, and we will be publishing a follow-up in the autumn of 2023. Our podcast spoke to some of the teachers and the researcher involved.

Part 1 of the report can be read here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-tutoring-in-schools-and-16-to-19-providers/independent-review-of-tutoring-in-schools-phase-1-findings

 

Shreena: So with us today we have two people from Bishop Thomas Grant school in Lambeth, Laura Waterman who's the assistant headteacher and  Michael Todd who is deputy head. With us we also have Alan Passingham, one of Ofsted's senior research leads. So if we could start with Alan, could you tell us about overall, what you found out about the quality of tutoring? 

Alan:  The starting point should be to define the quality of tutoring, the purpose of the work we did needed an appropriate lens in which to kind of look at what school leaders and staff and shooters were actually doing to make sure of what is quality in that sense sort of thing. So our starting point was to go back to the literature and have a look at what that was saying you know, and from there, we've got a sense of and this is in DFE guidance as well, that there's a need for it to be bespoke, small group size is more effective. It needs to be frequent, consistent, delivered by somebody with expertise, something to lead on, because one of the things we were going to struggle with was one thing that is difficult to determine, is identifying the direct impacts of tutoring on pupils outcomes, you know, there's there's just far too much noise in schools. They will be doing lots of other interventions. There'll be routine class teaching, you know, they'll be having an effect there will be things happening outside of school that will probably be impacting on. So there's just far too much noise to identify whether a single intervention is having that kind of improvement desired. So by going back to the research, it gives us a lens to determine and give us some degree of assurance that the schools we were looking at whether they were whether they were aligned to what good quality tutoring or more effective, that there's a direct line of causation, essentially.

With that in mind, and having got that criteria together, what did we find? It was a variable picture, but one with some genuinely positive aspects, you know, so many of the schools were following the guidelines with tutoring. So it was bespoke. It was small scale one to one, or at least one to three, one to four pupils per session. It was being delivered frequently, and it was being delivered by the same tutor on a regular basis. It was fairly quick and punchy, and pupils were not on it for a very long duration. 

You know, there was a good thinking around when to take pupils off, that other pupils would then get the opportunity to experience tutoring. It wasn't all positive. There were a minority of schools where it was a bit more haphazard and they weren't giving it the same level of consideration which so you did get some schools that would deliver it into a much larger group of pupils in a session so 10 to 15 pupils, which isn't bespoke, you lose that element of tutoring that I think is most important and the bespokeness of individual pupils, but also for tutors you know, they can see where a pupil may not be getting something right, almost immediately, and then can react to that and say, Okay, I can see where you're going wrong here. And do the level of scaffolding required to get the pupil back on track sort of thing. You know, so there's, there's immediacy to it. You've got a class with 10-15 pupils, it's much, much more difficult to do that, you know. 

So there was there was a bit more some schools that just weren't it wasn't just quite clicking, but I don't think that was a result of them, not necessarily misunderstanding what tutoring is. The sense I got from a lot of school leaders is they wanted to make a difference for their pupils. And so their their rationale was, we need more pupils to be accessing tutoring, sort of without realising that in some ways, that dilutes the impact, because it is very specific to individual needs, small group that kind of practice you know, so, so there was a desire to make a difference there, which is which is credible, but wasn't quite working with this particular intervention. 

What else did we find? Those schools that were stronger in this space had strong processes of pupil identification, so they identify pupils that had the biggest gaps in their learning, post pandemic, you know, getting those sorts they weren't necessarily just identifying a disadvantaged cohort, they were actually doing it a bit more rigorously than that to to really identify other pupils that, you know, had really suffered during the pandemic and needed that additional support. And the curriculum planing was strong, so there was good alignment between what was being delivered in in classes and what was also being delivered in tutoring so there was a moment there so when a pupil would completed their their tutoring sessions, they could then go back into the classroom and were studying the same kind of areas, you know, it wasn't they weren't going off and doing something completely different. 

Teachers and their pedagogy, or tutors and their pedagogy was really important groups really considering who should be the tutors, making sure that they were getting the right people involved, and they can build strong decisions on that. Which kind of leads to the last point I think I'll make here which is a lot of leaders preferring that, do it yourself kind of model rather than going through the National tutoring programme, which which did have some barriers, you know, particularly around the workload burden of managing that and getting a specific tutor or academic mentor in post and then not always delivering on that ie the actual tutor actually arriving as expected didn't always happen. And then sometimes the quality of the tutors that they found through the national tutoring programme, were not good enough. So the decisions that a lot of leaders leaders made was, we can do this ourselves, we can find tutors to do this. Typically, it was also teachers within the school. But some schools were also looking further, such as good examples of retired teachers, you know, coming back and doing a couple of hours work a week. They've got the expertise, they've got the experience, looking at good staff that would normally be there to provide support and cover and bring in those individuals in again with qualified teachers, but not necessarily full time teachers at that point. So schools were thinking about this in various ways of how they can deliver. 

Of course, the national tutoring programme features three routes, tutoring partners, active mentors, and the school-lead routes where national tutoring programme, and where schools have rebuffed elements of the national tutoring programme is largely been along the lines of the tutoring partners and academic mentors. There is very much a preference for the school-led route, managing the provision and tutors for themselves.

Shreena:
Then moving on to Laura and Michael, a really simple question is how did it work in your school?

Michael:
There are certainly negatives to the whole process, there are things that we find quite difficult to be able to work with and to make it work in our school but there are plenty of positives and interestingly, all the obstacles that we came through, we think have helped us form a really good package, so something positive came out of it. So when schools were closed back in 2020, we were actually approached by Talent-Ed, one of the providers and they were working to find schools,  working with pupil premium students whilst they were away from school. And that funding was provided. So we did that. It was really quite difficult to do because students were already learning remotely, and to set this up and to get good attendance was really difficult. So nice idea difficult to execute. And then in November 2020 when the National tutoring programme was launched we did a trial under the sort of constraints as they were at that time, that it was tuition partners that were then leading on this. 

So we did try a few groups of students with tutors who were working with us remotely. We had problems with that. It was difficult, and I think you know, a lot of these things were common to all schools who had a go to make it work because as Alan said, the need was there, the desire, the motivation, it just became quite a complicated process to make it work. We linked up with Connects Education. We had some students in small groups connecting with staff that we'd never met. So all sorts of safeguarding and quality assurance, issues with that. Students, if they've never met someone, they're not going to be as forthcoming with sharing their issues. That could work the other way as well, that somebody that they don't know they might they can connect with and may be a little more forthcoming with sharing where they're finding things difficult. 

So we'd limited success with that. Interestingly at that point, we trialled our own what became school-led tutoring. We have some of our staff and were able to start working with students in small groups. And we can see well, I don't think it's a big reach to understand that concept that if you know who your tutor is, and they're working with you in the classroom that you usually work in, and there's already a connection and the expectations of how school works. So we had a lot of success with that. 

When the tutoring programme changed, we could use our own staff, everything seemed to fall into place. Because we had the quality assurance, there was some training offered. We made good use of that with staff and Alan said, this was different. One of the first questions where we spoken to Alan before was how we define tuition. How is it different than a lesson? And Laura and I actually last night met with parents to launch a year 10 summer tuition programme again this year using the national tutoring programme funding and programme structure we went through the same thing with them. This idea that you've got staff here, free, they are willing, motivated, have been through the training. We understand the difference between tuition and teaching, we know the parents, know their expectations, parents are on board and that changed into a model that we did last summer, which we had huge success with. We've since done something different since September, with other yeargroups. And Laura, you probably want to here because certainly we've worked long and hard. You talked, Alan, again about the investment in schools in order to make it work. But that's so much more motivating and so much more palatable when you know you're doing this work.

Laura:
We've talked as a school a lot about the buy-in from both the students, the parents, the staff, it's got to be seen as a sort of valuable time and sort of energy for all involved, really. So that's why as Michael alluded to, you know, we've met with parents, we get that buy-in from them. We've also trialled last summer which we'll be replicating with this forthcoming year 10 tutoring session, which will last for five weeks starting from from this Monday. In terms of selecting the students it's yeah, it's it's sort of it's difficult to know the right process. We've tried different things. I know last summer when we were working with the year 10s, then our current year elevens. And it was the first time that we were trialling different things. And one thing I'd say to sort of schools is is there isn't one right model and don't be afraid to sort of change. If it's not working. We've tried different things. 

And we've realised quite quickly that that hasn't worked. That hasn't been the best way. But we wanted to get the scheme up and running quickly last year. So we based the selection of students on tracking data that at that point, wasn't the most up to date. We have new tracking data that was going to be out about two weeks or three weeks later, and we had a discussion whether to wait but we wanted to get this the tutoring programme up and running. So we based it on Spring Data, only to find that two or three weeks later, new data had come out and different students were then highlighted as being more in need, and the sort of timetables and the cards we give to our students with their timetable lessons on or tutoring sessions on all had to be reprinted and changed. But I mean, I suppose the basic rationale is the obvious one, we look at their performance on their on their tracking on assessments against their, you know, target grades, their end of year 10 Target grades, and that that does form a big basis of it and obviously, we look at students that are furthest away from their target grades, but I know Alan mentioned as well. We do have to factor in although it's not the the only thing but we do factor in what we call our students that have got sort of barriers to learning. I know it was mentioned sort of EAL, SEND, Pupil Premium. As a school every child has a profile and they are given a score. They get sort of certain points for different barriers to learning, potential barriers to learning. So we do sort of try and make sure that our tutoring programme also considers our sort of perhaps most vulnerable or the students that have these potential barriers to learning. And that can also you know, cover things such as sort of home factors, our school data on ethnicity and performance. That forms the premise, but alongside that is it's important to have confersations with the staff and the heads of department.

What I found with selecting the students for this summer programme that is about to start, those conversations were really important because there was some students who if we just purely based on tracking would have been selected, but upon having conversation with heads of department, they were saying useful things around what that data was based on and if it was based on an exam, that was just a particularly bad exam. I know for example, one teacher mentioned that there was one question that a few students just totally misread and therefore their tracking is kind of highlighting them as sort of below target actually, you know, we're not concerned about them and there are others who we will be more concerned on. My advice, I think, to sort of schools would be to definitely have those conversations. The teaching staff and the tutoring staff, the heads of department are obviously the specialists that know which students will be best and who will get the most out of the sessions as well.

Shreena:
That's brilliant. So it's been really it's really interesting to hear the journey that your school has been on with this. I had a couple of questions...so one was about kind of how you handle that student communication, I guess, in particular, when you have to change who was getting the tutoring based on the new data? How did you kind of go about communicating that to students? And also, I guess, more generally, how did he make sure that students were kind of engaged and up for it and didn't see it as a sort of this is a punishment. This is extra school.

Laura:
I think it's important that it is this sort of dynamic programme and actually students, it's is almost seen as a slight sort of sense of achievement. If they were involved in the tutoring programme and then three weeks down the line, you know, we can have a conversation with them and say, look, your data is showing that you've improved, that you don't need to attend to these sessions anymore. It's about keeping the conversation as a positive. I know, Michael, you'll agree. You know, we sort of say we had we have kids literally as we speak for the programme starting on Monday coming up to me today saying, Can I come to the English can I come to the maths tutoring session, and we've really sort of found the positive as a school where students do actually really want to get onto the programme. And I think that's because of how we, we present it to them and their parents that this is a sort of really great opportunity to fill those kinds of gaps and misconceptions they have now in year 10. And Michael sort of alluded to we do something else with your seven to nine as well. 

But I think it's the way that we send that message to them and it is a rolling programme you know, once you if you're on it in the beginning, it's not that you're on it forever, it's on a need by need basis and there's a you know, a reward or a sense of achievement. If, after two or three weeks, they're told that they no longer need to attend. 

Michael:
I think and this maybe surprised us as well, because this came from the training, the National Tutoring Programme, were offering this idea of assessing often and giving feedback of throughout the tuition session. It was very low stakes, and students felt that they were being listened to and that they'd be given your time. So we felt very positive, from the very first 10 minutes of those tuition sessions that we started. And that carried through. We don't - Alan, you said measure the impact. It's very difficult to measure the impact in terms of data that might be generated from some assessment, but there was a clear qualitative feedback that we got immediately. And that was that the students really liked it. They liked the attention, they liked the positive messages that went home. It's time to in the year the school academic calendar that is coming straight  after a big data collection for these students that are transitioning to becoming year 11s. So they're going through their data with teachers who went through the data with parents, they are trying to formulate new habits. They're making promises to themselves and making commitments and this is a really straightforward, easy, an immediate step that they can do and commit to. And we hold them to that commitment, you know, their ability to be in control of their self efficacy. To come forward for the promises. They find that to be really, really positive. I also think that the breakfast or the snack or that we offer also helped us to motivate some students to tell the rest and we shouldn't leave that out. 

Yeah, when we when we sell it to them. We do give it a really hard sell. We really laid on thickly about the opportunity that they have. And that's deeply rooted in the fact that staff really care about their progress. I can see where we're struggling and as someone said there's another 25 to 30 students with you. Everybody knows how difficult that might be, the many barriers there are to students opening up as to why they are finding something difficult and for them to come back at the end of the day, although they do do that. They come back at lunchtimes. This is their opportunity and they jump for it. So we're hoping for the same thing this summer.

Laura: 
And I think it's worth also just in terms of I was just looking in terms of staff and I think this is also evidence that you know, sort of staff have also enjoyed running these sessions. So last year, there was 27 staff, I believe that that sort of put themselves forward to run a tutoring session. And this year we've got 29 staff that are going to be involved from Monday. You know, they're going to do it again. So, you know, I think that's testimony as well. But the staff actually really enjoyed the sessions too. They got a lot from it in terms of being able to work with smaller groups. And I know sort of when I went round and was sort of just popping my head into the tutoring sessions. It was a really nice atmosphere in the room. A lot of the time the staff sort of just slightly changed the layout of the classroom. So there was just sort of a, a couple of tables with the chairs all round or boardroom kind of style. Michael mentioned the snacks so they were there chomping away on a croissant, a pain au chocolat, and having a nice kind of conversation with the member of staff and you know, we choose the members of staff really carefully, although they do also put themselves forward and you know, our members of staff are the best placed people to run these sessions. They know the exam boards that we that we operate with. They already have relationships, albeit sometimes they might not teach the students in their tutoring sessions. They're aware of the students around the playground around the school, and those relationships are already there. But it was a really nice atmosphere when I when I went round, the sort of tutoring sessions to deliver the snacks and just see what was going on.

Shreena; 
Snacks sound like a really sound strategy for student engagement.

Alan; 
Can I add a couple of things. I think the first one was what Michael said about pupil confidence. And that is something that that came out through a number of schools that we went to where it had that that bespoke nature to it. There was that sense of Oh, this is for me. And they you know, there was that confidence because what we're getting from pupils were they found it tricky in classes. Yeah, that routine classes to put their hand up in the air. They didn't have the confidence to do that because they were afraid of getting the answer wrong. Whereas in a small group session such as this, there's a bit more security there, you know, and, and so, they were starting to find their voices and they were asking questions that they might not necessarily do so in those larger class settings. The benefit that was eventually when they went back into that class settings, they started to put their hand up and they were starting to contribute there as well. So I think that was a richness to some of the qualitative kind of responses we were getting from pupils about how they perceived that the impact and that generally it was it was positive for them and for their, learning for their confidence, for their resilience, you know, these are all valuable things. 

So the tutors, the teachers that were delivering were saying exactly the same things that they could have seen growth in their pupils, you know, a couple of examples, examples that I can recall on some of the visits that I went to of, 'We weren't sure about this people we weren't, we weren't sure if this was for them. But actually, it was perfect, you know, the environment, we've seen them grow in a way that we wouldn't have seen beforehand. In some cases, it has been a case of in class a bit of a troublemaker. And that may be because they've got a bit of an audience that they can put a show on to, but in the tutoring session, they pivot and that's, that's the environment where you know, actually is really accessible for them and they benefit from that. 

The other point I want to make is something that Laura mentioned about the process of adapting, and I think it was in the case of your assessment, your identification of pupils for this, but I think that the adaptation is a principle that is probably applied more generally across all aspects of school leaders coming to terms with 'what is tutoring, and how do we deliver this in our context.' So again, if we go back to the research, it's kind of it's it's small scale, but much smaller scale, research that's been completed on saying these are the things that are these are the areas where it is likely to have impact and be beneficial to people. 

Current policy is being done at scale. I don't think that's ever been achieved before. So So I think part of that process and what we're learning from the research is, it's not going to necessarily look exactly like we would find in the research that already exists. This is this is new research that we're providing, where at scale and in different contexts, schools will work in different environments and have different pupils, and may need to make different decisions about how they implement it. And I think that part of that adaptation has been part of the journey that schools have been on the in the year that we've done the research you know, so you know, some are coming on board with it a little bit later than others. A lot of this has been trial be error - getting used to a new process and seeing where it lands. And that's the continuing journey. Essentially, it's kind of it's making some decisions reflecting on those and then going through a process of transformation to say, there's more that we can do here. Being adaptable, flexible in that and reflecting on your decisions within the tutoring space are actually really quite powerful and useful. 

Shreena; 
Definitely, I was gonna ask Michael and Laura one more question about the process and things. How did it go with parents because I suppose I can see it going in two directions. Potentially, that there might be some parents who are disappointed that they feel like their child has been identified as needing extra support, and they're upset about that. And then there also might be parents who are upset because their child hasn't been identified as needing additional support and perceives it as some children are getting more than their child.

Michael:
That's really interesting. Again, that's part of our process, part of our journey where we've, we're asking questions that we probably wouldn't have thought about before we run the programme, I would say we've taken great time to explain to the parents, the constraints that we have, the time that we have, and why we're doing it at this point in the academic year. We took time to explain why the numbers in classes had to be small. We took time to explain that we were using our own staff. Therefore the number of hours that we had before school and after school so we didn't upset the timetable as it is were limited, we talked about the fact that Friday afternoons weren't very popular with staff, or students, that Tuesday afternoons we have directed time, so it comes down to five days before school, and three days after school and with those constraints, when we ran it last year we tried lunchtime as well but it was too short. Students seemed to find it more of a punishment. So we've led parents through our process. I think in the first year, we would have more parents asking if can my son or my daughter also be in French, because it's great that they're in English, and maths, but there's also red on the tracker for French. And we also had, 'why have I only got history? I've got other subjects here that are also in red'. But last night we had far fewer of those requests. Every request that we get we do go back to the head of department and say is there a way we could work this out? And some staff have said, great, this is a highly motivated student, I will do another session or run some parallel groups'.  But we haven't had anyone yet who has seen it as punishment.

Laura: 
The problem is capacity and parents and students wanting to get on to the the the tutoring sessions that they haven't got on to. And again that I think is because of the way it's kind of sold here at Bishop Thomas Grant. Got sort of English and maths but actually we want science as well. I've had a few emails today regarding can we get on to these sessions? It's got to be kept - for it to be having the impact that's that's desirable - is the group sizes have got to be kept, let's say six maximum, and that it does refer to just some difficult conversations but making it very clear to parents, where the rationale is and why. I've sort of created a little bit of a waiting list at the moment because I've had conversations today with parents in the sense of if there is a lack of engagement or a lack of attendance in let's say one of the English sessions, that their child would be first to be offered that place.

Alan; 
From a research perspective. What I've enjoyed very much about the project is how how schools have engaged with us on this, particularly in the beginning, autumn term 2021 when COVID was still fresh in the mind, and you know, there was still bubbles and the like going on. For schools to invite us in and are willing willing to participate in the research you know, has been has been lovely. Both Michael and Laura you know, very grateful that you did allow us to come in and and see what you were doing in the tutoring space but that goes for every single head teacher, their deputies, their staff, their pupils that have all contributed to this, we couldn't have done this piece of work without them, you know, and that goes for the second year with the work that we've been doing as well. You know, it's kind of hopefully we found some really interesting stuff out so that it can be helpful, but it can't be done without the commitment and the support of the schools, the leaders, the staff, the pupils that we spoke to, as part of the project, so incredibly grateful for that. Thank you. 

Shreena: 
Michael and Laura, do you have any other pearls of wisdome for schools embarking on this? 

Michael: 
Can I just share something that wasn't immediately obvious to us when we set out. It wasn't a surprise, but it's been a real benefit. Now we have 29 staff that are working within their subject areas, some are heads of department, some aren't. They are looking at what we're calling 'cornerstone knowledge' and skills in their subject, and looking across the whole key stage 4 with the summer school, and for the lower school, they're looking at key stage three. What are those cornerstone  pieces of knowledge? That, if we get right, help students accellerate because they are important for so many elements of that subject. So to have 29 staff working and thinking in that way, has really helped us to develop confidence in our curriculum. It's filtered through to so much of the CPD and inset that we have here at school. We have a curriculum review process with staff, in order to critique approaches, subject choices in terms of sequencing and prioritising knowledge and skills, and staff have become so much more confident. It's such a powerful, impactful process. Through the summer term here to narrow down what you want to cover with year 10 students - the possibilities are endless!

And that's also really exciting for staff. Because before you become a teacher, I think, there's an element of that, the essence of sitting down with small groups of people, and talking through a subject that you love. And you've had the opportunity here to craft a little curriculum for those individuals that's reallty special. That can be really motivating for staff and we've seen that. It's not separate from curriculum thinking, it's so integrated. The legacy will be far beyond. We're going to be limited in the future, it's a lot to take on, and we welcome that. But if we had the funding, we could do it. Without that, we wouldn't be able to do it. 

Shreena: 
We published the first report into tutoring in October last year and we're publishing the next on this autumn. Thank you very much to Alan Passingham, and to Laura and Michael from Bishop Thomas Grant school in London.