Bohunt Education Trust

We worked with nearly 2000 pupils across Bohunt Education Trust (BET), a growing daily of eight schools across the South of England. Our tutors provided more than 10000 lessons between eleven subjects across KS3 and GCSE, aiming to raise grades and confidence across the board. 

The challenge

The Trust's focus is on providing every child, regardless of background, unparalleled opportunity and an outstanding education. 

The schools came up against significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdown disproportionately affected disadvantaged students, making existing barriers to learning even worse, especially in terms of technology access. 

"We were quick to provide devices to every pupil in need across the Trust," says Gary Green, Head of Virtual School at BET. "And we created online platforms immediately to support remote learning. 

"We also worked to identify gaps and adjust our approaches. We realised the need to provide further targeted support for some pupils, through online tutoring." 

The programme

To further support its pupils, BET expanded its partnerships with MyTutor, integrating the program across its family of schools. 

The implementation was tailored, with a blend of 1:1 and small group tutoring, focusing on supporting hard-to-reach pupils. Each school's Tutoring Lead played a crucial role in fine-tuning the approach. They continuously monitored progress and adapted the programme to individuals, and this was key to keeping engagement levels high. 

The impact

There have been success stories across every school and where attendance is higher, success is even greater. 

The impact can be seen as below: 

• Tripling progress 

The results were clear: students engaged in the MyTutor programme made three times the progress compared to a control group. "Looking at the average progress made across schools in our first year, pupils who attended MyTutor lessons made at least triple the progress of a control group," says Gary. 

• Increased capacity to support

The tutoring has provided a significant capacity to support pupils with the greatest gaps within a broader suite of approaches. "So, while it's just one intervention, is a very good one," says Gary. 

The experience

The school commended MyTutor for being adaptable and flexible to the school's needs. "They've been complete partners - we have different schools with different needs and different pupils, and MyTutor worked with all of them. It's been very much a 'we'," says Gary. 

"We had a very good experience with MyTutor being solutions-focused. They were very supportive of our schools, adapted their approach to meet our needs, and were very keen to innovate with us." 

The peer-to-peer aspect of tutoring was particularly effective, as the tutors, being close in age to the students, served as relatable role models and mentors. 

MyTutor also launched bespoke sessions through the trust's summer school. As part of this, tutors and graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds ran sessions and shared their own stories with the schools' pupils to encourage the next generation to participate in tutoring.

"It was about MyTutor's ability to influence things at scale, and the systems and support for that," says Gary. "But it was also a genuine commitment to thinking outside the box and looking at their roadmap and working with us about what else they could do to support what else we're trying to achieve."  

A top tip or word of advice from the school

"It's very simple to get the tutoring to work but requires attention to detail. It's not complex; it's intensive. We're very good at systems and we've worked hard to plug the data into our broader work to make sure it's mutually reinforcing and that feedback from tutoring is leading to better, more adaptive teaching in school." 

Have you downloaded our latest Impact Report? Find out how more schools, just like Bohunt Education Trust, are making an impact through online tutoring this year- as well as exclusive insights from our latest teacher and pupil survey, up-to-date funding and programme information. 

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