Action Tutoring releases record-breaking 2021 Impact Report, ahead of 10th-year milestone

Education charity, Action Tutoring, has released its 2021 Impact Report showcasing a record-breaking year for the tutoring organisation, in its mission to tackle the academic attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils across the country.

The report reflects Action Tutoring’s significant growth amid the pandemic and highlights the meaningful academic progress of beneficiary pupils, as the charity is set to celebrate ten years of optimising the power of volunteer tutoring for inclusive education in May.

“Last year, despite Covid continuing to pose unprecedented challenges for schools and reversing some of the progress made to narrow the academic attainment gap, we scaled up our online tutoring to 80% of our total delivery. Our pandemic response strategy enabled us to double in size, increasing our tutor pool and the number of pupils we supported,” said Susannah Hardyman, CEO of Action Tutoring.

Guided by its renewed mission to unlock the potential of children and young people who are facing disadvantage to make meaningful academic progress and open doors to future opportunities, 2021 was a pivotal year for Action Tutoring’s impact. The charity recorded a 150% increase in volunteer tutors and a 160% increase in the number of pupils receiving tutoring. In total, 5,528 pupils from 156 schools across the country were supported, receiving over 61,700 hours of tutoring delivered by 2,749 trained volunteers.  The volunteer tutors came from a range of backgrounds including university students, corporate employees and retired professionals.

Of the Year 11 pupils, facing disadvantage, who attended at least eight tutoring sessions with Action Tutoring, 81% achieved a grade 4 or above in English and 80% achieved a grade 4 or above in maths despite being identified as at risk of not achieving national standards in these subjects. These pupils out-performed the national GCSE results for disadvantaged pupils – 67% of disadvantaged pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in English and 62% for maths in 2020-21 nationally.

Susannah believes the marked academic progress and significant positive impact Action Tutoring made in the last year and over the past decade are attributed to the tireless efforts of volunteer tutors, who go above and beyond to contribute to the success of disadvantaged children; the evidenced-based impact-led programme the charity has developed and the dedicated and passionate staff team.

“Through the dedication and resilience of our growing pool of volunteers who deliver high-quality, effective tutoring sessions, coupled with our quality assurance standards, we are offering a tangible and powerful solution to educational disadvantage in the UK,” said Susannah. “We are grateful to every volunteer tutor helping us to make a difference, and we’ll remain committed to ensuring more disadvantaged pupils can receive the education they deserve.”

On the heels of a challenging pandemic year, Action Tutoring’s Impact Report outlines the significant progress the charity has made to bolster equitable and inclusive education, including expanding access to tutoring through the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), positive and matching progress made by Year 6 pupils; increased partnerships with schools across the UK and addressing the academic attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

To read the 2021 Impact Report, please visit: actiontutoring.org.uk/2021impactreport

About Action Tutoring

Action Tutoring is an education charity on a mission to unlock the potential of children and young people who are facing disadvantage and tackle the attainment gap by forging partnerships with schools nationwide. Since its establishment in 2012, Action Tutoring has supported over 19,000 pupils with the help of over 9,000 volunteer tutors and created 50 bespoke tutoring workbooks to enable pupils to make meaningful academic progress and open doors to future opportunities.