Tutoring provides an excellent opportunity to receive support in one of their key subjects. This type of opportunity would previously have only been available at great expense to the family. It is important that students embrace the opportunity, attend every session and get as much out of the tuition as possible.

Students have been selected for the subjects based on feedback given by their teachers through the reporting system. It may be because they are below target in a particular subject area and the tuition will help to close that gap, or it may be that we feel that the support may give them an opportunity to secure the forecast grade, or even improve upon it.

Research has shown that tuition can improve students confidence, help with study skills across all subject areas and improve outcomes by up to one whole grade. No matter how well an individual revises on their own this will always be improved by having a subject specialist to help in the areas that they are not as confident.

Inevitably students may benefit from support in more than one subject area and we have had to determine where this support should be provided. In order to maximise the flexibility for student delivery, for example being able to provide tuition in the evenings we are working with an external company, MyTutor. This does mean that we cannot change the subject that is provided.

However, every student receiving support is being provided with tuition in a subject area that we believe will benefit them. It is also true that good study habits in one subject usually lead to good study habits across a range of subjects. Through the tuition programme students will be learning good habits, and will have an early focus on securing good outcomes for the summer exams.

The tutorial programme is very expensive to run – privately a tutor would cost around £30 per hour. They are also extremely beneficial to students, so attendance is essential – attendance is monitored throughout the week. If a student misses two consecutive sessions or a number of sessions then they will be replaced. Once this decision has been made then we are not able to reverse it.

If missing a session is unavoidable then please do let us know in advance. It may be that is all students agree then it could be rearranged (please understand that this may not be possible).

Unfortunately, the numbers that we can select are restricted and so we have had to make some difficult choices about which students will be offered tuition through the National Tutoring programme. Please bear in mind that this is just one of many initiatives that the school runs to support students in Year 11. All students can access regular support such as:

• Weekly lunchtime or after school subject based revision sessions.
• Homework catch-up
• Easter and May half term revision programme
• GCSE Pod

In addition, all students have been given a full set of revision textbooks for all subjects.