Undergraduate tutors help local school pupils ‘double grades’

A university-led nationwide tutoring programme in schools could help hundreds of thousands of poorer pupils progress, it has been claimed, after a pilot study showed that help from undergraduates led to a 100 per cent improvement in children’s basic writing skills.

Year 8 pupils who had been struggling in their English lessons at St James School in Exeter were offered tutoring sessions in small groups during the autumn term of 2022, thanks to a partnership with the University of Exeter.

Assessments testing the 18 pupils’ ability to write accurate sentences were taken before and after the nine-week intervention, with the average score of all who took part improving from 10.9 out of 30 to 21 out of 30.

The six undergraduate tutors who carried out the placements were offered credit towards their degrees and were given training and work experience, leading the programme organisers to claim that the effort was “win-win” for everyone involved.

Exeter’s Centre for Social Mobility – funded by the UPP Foundation – is now extending its pilot to trial other models of delivery, such as paying students for tutoring and working with partners across different universities using the same training course, a report to be published on 11 May will explain.

Research carried out as part of the pilot found that about 50 of the UK’s 150 universities offer some sort of tutoring support to local schools, but Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility at Exeter, said a more coordinated effort that offered quality tutoring nationwide could have a far larger impact.

“Our ultimate hope is to help create a sustainable nationwide tutoring effort benefiting pupils across the country,” Professor Elliot Major said.

“We believe that a university-led programme is a real opportunity to build a win-win-win model for both learners and student tutors if done in the right way.

“Universities are well placed to ensure that the student tutor experience is as beneficial as possible, and this could improve the school achievement of hundreds of thousands of poorer pupils across the country.

“As reputable, well-funded and established institutions within their local regions, universities are well placed to deliver high-quality, sustainable tutoring at scale and make a real difference to many young lives.”

Richard Brabner, the director of the UPP Foundation, said tutoring delivered by universities had “the potential to reach pupils in the farthest reaches of the country”.

“This would be a social mobility game changer and a major contribution to levelling up an unequal education system for pupils and students alike,” he added. “It could also encourage more undergraduates into teaching. But it would also benefit universities, who need to do more to demonstrate their value to all in society.”

Universities in the UK are under pressure from the regulator, the Office for Students, to expand their work with local schools as a way of boosting attainment and widening participation.

Anne-Marie Sim, a social mobility researcher at Exeter, said tutoring by undergraduates was “one of the few education approaches which particularly benefits disadvantaged pupils”.

Embedding such programmes could be a long-term solution, she said, because universities were well placed to build lasting relationships with local schools and to ensure that the tutoring service was responsive to local needs.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com