Tutoring: guidance for education settings

May 2024

Contents Overview 3

Who this publication is for 3

The impact of tutoring 4

Planning and delivering high-quality tutoring 5

Setting a strategy 5

Supporting pupils and students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) 5

Scheduling tutoring 6

Remote tutoring 6

Selecting tutors 7

Safeguarding 7

Monitoring and evaluating tutoring 9

Data and reporting 10

Further resources 11

Overview

This is non-statutory guidance on tutoring from the Department for Education.

Evidence suggests that tutoring can support the academic progress of pupils and students. You may find this guidance helpful to refer to when you are planning and delivering tutoring.

Pupils and students required support to catch up on education lost because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We introduced the National Tutoring Programme and 16-19 Tuition Fund over the 2020/21 to 2023/24 academic years to deliver tutoring at an unprecedented scale. Our guidance includes some of the insight that we and education settings have gained from this, and other useful resources from the Education Endowment Foundation and the National Foundation for Educational Research.

Who this publication is for

This guidance is for leaders in England in:

• schools • colleges and other 16 to 19 providers

Staff and tutors involved in delivering tutoring may find it useful to refer to this guidance.

The impact of tutoring

Tutoring is intensive 1:1 or small group targeted academic support, used to improve the attainment of pupils and students.

The Education Endowment Foundation (Eef) identifies that if tutoring is high-quality and aligned to classroom teaching, 1:1 tuition can result in up to 5 months additional progress. Small group tuition, in groups of 2 to 5 pupils, can result in up to 4 months of additional progress.1

Evidence shows the positive impact that targeted academic support can have for those that come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Tutoring is included in the menu of approaches in the pupil premium guidance for school leaders. The pupil premium is funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. The guidance provides information on how schools can develop and deliver an effective pupil premium strategy to support their disadvantaged pupils.

1 Teaching and Learning Toolkit. Education Endowment Foundation

Planning and delivering high-quality tutoring

The Eef suggest tuition is most likely effective if it is targeted at pupils’ and students’ specific needs. This requires sensitive and ongoing diagnostic assessment.2

Other important factors which drive the impact of tutoring include:

• group size • frequency • overall course length • alignment with the curriculum

Effective implementation is important to ensure tutoring is successful and improves attainment.

Please refer to the further resources section for guides and advice on effective tutoring and implementation.

The following sections highlight some other important areas to consider when planning and delivering tutoring.

Setting a strategy

At the outset you should consider your overall tutoring strategy, and any potential barriers to implementation in your setting. Tutoring should form part of a wider approach to boost attainment in your setting. It is also important to engage and involve staff to support the effective implementation of tutoring.

Ofsted’s independent review of tutoring in schools in the 2022 to 2023 academic year also found that leaders and staff said it was important to have parents’ support for tutoring. The Ofsted review contains findings on some of the common strategies schools used to engage parents, which you may find helpful to refer to.

Supporting pupils and students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

It is important to consider the individual needs of pupils and students with SEND and adapt the tutoring approach to meet these needs.

2 Making a Difference with Effective Tutoring. Education Endowment Foundation

To improve the tutoring experience and enhance academic outcomes for pupils or students with SEND, you can consider taking the following steps:

• work closely with tutors to discuss individual needs, and ensure tutors are supported to deliver the tutoring • maintain small group sizes of 1:1 or 1:2 for pupils or students with SEND • align any tutoring provision with the requirements set out in a pupil or student’s education, health and care plan (EHCP), where applicable • ensure learning is tailored and targeted to meet the individual needs of each pupil or student

Scheduling tutoring

Different times will be more or less likely to encourage high attendance at tutoring sessions, depending on the individual circumstances of your pupils or students, for example during lessons or after-school.

The Eef’s guide to effective tutoring highlights that if pupils are taken out of their usual classroom teaching to receive tutoring, it should be a prerequisite of the tutoring that it at least compensates for the time spent away from class.

The National Foundation for Educational Research’s evaluation of the National Tutoring Programme in the 2022 to 2023 academic year found that when pupils were tutored during lessons, staff reported a range of strategies for minimising missed learning. The most common strategy was rotating tutoring times, and others included scheduling tutoring outside core subject time and using short tutoring sessions to reduce missed time.

Remote tutoring

The benefits of remote tutoring include:

• access to a wider pool of tutors • tutoring outside of school hours

If you choose to provide tutoring remotely, you will need to consider how remote sessions can be delivered safely, and the pupil’s individual needs and circumstances. Read our ‘Providing remote education: non-statutory guidance for schools’.

When tutoring is provided outside school hours, schools retain their usual safeguarding responsibilities in relation to their pupils and must ensure a designated safeguarding lead (Dsl) is available for the entirety of the period in which tutoring outside of core school hours takes place.

Read our guidance on ‘Safeguarding and remote education’.

Selecting tutors

Tutoring is more likely to be impactful when delivered by a subject specialist able to deploy teaching strategies effectively.3

You may choose to use external tutoring organisations and tutors. This can be beneficial for supporting pupils, and bring additional benefits to your setting, such as providing additional capacity to deliver tutoring.

In selecting an external organisation or tutor, you should consider the following:

• does the tutoring organisation or tutor have adequate safer recruitment and safeguarding checks for staff employed? • what is the qualification and experience level of the tutoring organisation or tutor? • will tutoring be delivered online, in person, or a combination of both? • is this tutoring organisation or tutor the right fit for my setting? Consider your context such as where your setting is, and pupil or student needs for example SEND and English as an additional language (Eal) • how will this organisation or tutor regularly communicate with the classroom teacher to monitor and report back on student progress? • what contractual arrangements should be in place before tutoring starts (including clarity of understanding regarding how personal data will be safely shared with the tutoring organisation)?

Safeguarding

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. You must ensure that appropriate safeguarding and safer recruitment measures are in place for all types of tutoring you are delivering, and that you have fulfilled all of your obligations under Keeping Children Safe in Education (Kcsie).

Kcsie is applicable when using existing members of staff and hiring new staff to become tutors. It also applies when engaging an external tutoring organisation as they constitute third party staff deployed in regulated activity on behalf of the school or college. As such, you should ensure external tutors are suitable and the tutoring organisation has effective safer recruitment arrangements in place. External tutoring organisations are required to give you information about the tutor they are deploying in your setting, in compliance with the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003.

3 Small group tuition. Education Endowment Foundation Ofsted Independent Review of Tutoring in Schools: Phase 2 Findings. 2023

As with any activity, you should consider the risks of tutoring and any appropriate mitigations. This includes ensuring suitable supervision for in person and online tutoring sessions no matter the location of the tutoring, and ensuring a designated safeguarding lead is always available when tutoring takes place.

Monitoring and evaluating tutoring

Establishing processes to consistently monitor and evaluate the impact of tutoring will enable you to track progress and refine and improve your tutoring strategy over time.4

This may look like:

• baselining and monitoring student attainment data from a range of formative and summative assessments • informal and formal tutoring learning walks • feedback cycles being recorded from the tutor, pupil and classroom teacher • observing attainment trends at points across the school year • parent and pupil feedback • subject teacher feedback • views of senior leaders

As part of your monitoring strategy, you should plan intervention points if this data suggests there is stagnation in attainment after a series of tutoring sessions or if there are any implementation challenges.

4 Making a Difference with Effective Tutoring. Education Endowment Foundation.

Data and reporting

DfE will collect data on tutoring as part of the termly school census to understand and build evidence on the delivery of tutoring in schools. You will be asked to provide data on the number of pupils who have received tutoring in your school.

Read more information on making your termly school census return in the school census guidance.

Further resources

The Eef guide to effective tutoring provides advice on delivering high-quality tutoring.

The National Foundation for Educational Research (Nfer) provides guidance and practical recommendations for schools on planning and delivering tutoring, based on their evaluations of the National Tutoring Programme.

The Eef’s guide to implementation supports schools to implement an initiative.

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