We’re helping deliver an innovative tutoring programme that will see our students work with local schools to help pupils develop their literacy skills.
The University of Exeter Tutoring Model sees undergraduate student tutors deliver a literacy programme to small groups of Year 8 students.
Evidence shows that high quality one-to-one or small group tutoring is one of the best ways for improving pupil progress, particularly those from under-resourced backgrounds.
And the student tutors themselves also gain invaluable skills and experience, either gaining credits towards their degree or being paid for their time.
The tutoring programme was developed by experts at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Social Mobility and Lindsay Skinner, the former head teacher at St James School in Exeter.
It is provided free to schools for pupils aged 12 to 13 and following a successful pilot in Devon, it will now be piloted across the North East, South West and West of England.
We’re supporting its delivery through the North East Uni Connect Programme – a partnership involving North East England’s five universities: Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside.
We’ll help with the recruitment of undergraduate tutors and run on-campus Study Skills Events to help the participating pupils develop additional skills to complement their learning.
The aim is to deliver the tutoring programme to a maximum of 25 schools across our region, reaching 350 Year 8 pupils.
The programme launches in February 2024 and will run until July 2024.
Its success will be evaluated, and the model may then be rolled out to more schools across the North East.
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