Catch-up Funding/Action Tutoring

The very best intervention for catch up is to provide children with the highest   quality teaching that we can offer, built on diagnostic assessment.  With children having missed a significant amount of time in school over the past year, it is       essential to identify where there are gaps in understanding, so teachers can plan effectively to meet individual learning needs.

The use of robust assessment is an important part of effective teaching and     learning, which is why we have invested in quality assessments that will be        administered and analysed each term. (Year 1-6)

NFER Tests :

· the end result of extensive review, trialling and analysis

· written in-house by a team of assessment experts

· written in collaboration with teachers

· based on a deep knowledge of children’s development and curricula.

Materials are developed by an in-house team of assessment specialists, many with teaching backgrounds. This team has a wealth of experience in developing assessments, both statutory and non-statutory, and this experience, alongside teacher feedback, helps ensure that NFER Tests are of the highest standard.

Assessments will be undertaken at the end of each term and used to ensure learning closely matches the needs of all children through school.

The Action Tutoring 2018-19 Impact Report was launched in April 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Reflecting on its contents, Action Tutoring is even more determined to weather the crisis and ensure it can continue to deliver its impactful academic support to the pupils who will so desperately need it.

The pandemic will hit disadvantaged young people incredibly hard, but this report shows how relevant and necessary Action Tutoring is in helping them get back to where they should be.

Key headlines from this latest report demonstrate the value of the charity:

• Of the primary school pupils the charity supported, 74% met the expected standard in reading and 81% in maths (12% and 14% higher respectively than the national average for disadvantaged pupils).
• Of the secondary school pupils who attended ten or more Action Tutoring sessions, 61% achieved a grade 4 or above in GCSE English and 58% reached this level in GCSE maths, both exceeding the national average for disadvantaged pupils.
• All pupils supported by Action Tutoring were at risk of not achieving these standards when they began the tutoring programme.
• In 2018-19, 1,150 inspiring volunteers supported over 2,500 disadvantaged pupils in 84 schools across seven UK cities.

Many families have the means to provide their children with an effective education at home, or pay for a private tutor, whilst schools are shut. For the young people Action Tutoring supports this is simply not an option.  These are pupils who are already struggling academically and the absence of education, and any other means of support, will simply leave them further behind. It is highly likely the attainment gap will widen further as a result.

For these reasons it’s imperative that we, as a charity, can survive and continue supporting disadvantaged young people.

Tutoring with the Lightning Squad - developed by FFT and Success for All - is a reading tutoring programme where pupils work with a tutor in two cooperative pairs, taking turns as ‘Reader’ and ‘Coach’. The tutoring is a blended approach with in-person tutoring supported by an online tutoring platform. Tutoring activities are designed to improve reading skills, fluency, comprehension, spelling and phonics. Pupils work through 65 specially written, engaging and illustrated stories.

Most pupils spend 12 weeks working on the tutoring programme to catch-up their reading skills, with daily 30-minute tutoring sessions in school (4 pupils working with a tutor). Research has demonstrated that pupils using Tutoring with the Lightning Squad make learning gains of between 3 and 5 months in reading attainment.