 Good evening everyone. It's Ross up here in the red t-shirt. Well, I don't know where you are on your screen, but I'm on the top left of my own screen. And thank you for joining me this evening. I hope you're well, half-term for many of you. Before we get started, I'm going to introduce who I'm with. You're all experts at all this kind of, you know, talking online at the moment. So if you can just mute your microphones your side, you can pose questions through the chat box and then we'll post them either on your behalf or respond to them publicly. And you can be conscious of your backgrounds, no small children, those sorts of things, I would be grateful. This video is getting shared on YouTube and also on my blog. So if you can just do those things your side, that'd be appreciated. I'm just going to share a couple of images. So first of all, I'm just going to start with where you are all watching from. So this is just a picture of through my newsletter. So we've got, I think I didn't actually count the countries, but we've had about nearly 500 sign-ups, probably about 20 countries there. So it'd be interesting to know why and who you are from those different regions. If I just show you the UK map, so that's where you're all located here in the UK. Got one or two colleagues joining us from Scotland and Wales. So thank you to everybody for joining in. I'll go straight down to business. I'm going to ask each of our hosts just to say who they are, what the role is. So, you know, you all know me, so I'm going to just kind of skip introductions here. I work alongside Mark Cooper at GK. Mark, I don't know if you want to just say anything, but Mark's doing all the admin and chat box behind the scenes. So he's giving me a nod, he's going to pass. So if I hand over to the Education and Dammit Foundation, to Robbie first and to Emily, just to say hello to everybody. Hi, Ross. Really good to be here tonight. My name is Robbie Coleman. I work at the Education and Dammit Foundation and I'm part of the team setting up their national tutoring program. And to Emily. Yeah. Hi there, everyone. Sorry, I was a bit slow on my unmute button. And yeah, good to see everyone. I'm Emily Yehman. I'm also from the Education and Dammit Foundation and I'm working on the National Tutoring Program, Tuition Partners Pillar. And over to Yulani. Teach first. Yulani, hello. Good evening. Hi there, hi. So yes, I'm Mialani Bikaswaran. I'm the Head of Academic Mentoring at Teach First. And really grateful to be here tonight to talk to you all about the academic mentoring program. OK, thank you, Yulani. And to Liberty. And then to Jack. Hi. Hi, Liberty. Yeah, hi. I'm Liberty. I also work at the Education and Dammit Foundation. And to Jack. Sorry, I think I'm having some internet. OK, so we'll crack on and we're going to bring everyone in. Mark, Liberty and Jack, well, we're all going to be responding to all the questions in the chat box. So fire them over in that side. And I'll go straight into our kind of first question. So who's involved? So if I bring perhaps Robbie, then Emily, then Yulani in just to kind of kick things off. Could you give us a brief overview for everyone watching? What is the National Tutors Program all about? Absolutely. Thanks, Ross. The National Tutoring Program is an initiative that's been set up by a group of charities to support schools in responding to the impact of the pandemic on learning. So the EEF, which is the charity I work for, did a piece of research right back in April. And what we identified was that the pandemic was likely to widen the attainment gap between students who are eligible for preschool years and their peers. And actually that the magnitude of that impact might be large enough that it reverses that the progress we've made as a system, narrowing the gap over the last decade. So the question was what we could do about that. And so we looked at the evidence on what are some of the most effective approaches that we know are out there according to the evidence base. And tutoring comes really near the top of that list. And so the National Tutoring Program is an effort to increase the availability of high quality tutoring and to make that available to as many schools and in particular disadvantaged students as possible over the next academic year. Okay, is there anything to add Emily before I hand over to Yolani? Yeah, so just specifically in terms of the tuition partners pillar. So the tuition partners pillar is about getting external high quality tutors into school. So we know obviously the thing that's most important for improving the attainment of pupils is quality first teaching, but through the tuition partners pillar we want to support schools by bringing in additional kind of capacity to support pupils and take some of the burden away from schools in terms of assessing quality by the team at the EF doing a kind of quality assessment and approving the providers that we think are the highest quality and likely to have the highest impacts on pupil attainment. Okay, thank you and Yolani. Thank you. So the academic mentoring program is slightly different. Teach First are looking to recruit and then train and place up to a thousand academic mentors who work in schools as direct employees of the school. We've had about, we're having just over 190 mentors starting in school at the beginning of autumn two and we'll have the remaining at start in January and February as well. Okay, thank you. So Robbie, I wanna put out this link to everyone in the newsletter. I was, I had quite a lot of responses. Jack will also know one or two bits of challenge came through my social media feeds also. So we're hoping to dispel some of those but just can I first go to Robbie and ask, is it just for disadvantaged students? Thanks, Ross. So we think that disadvantaged students are likely to be particularly negatively affected by lockdown, but equally we know that every family experienced and has experienced the pandemic in a different way. So there's some flexibility from school's perspective in terms of selecting the pupils that will access tutoring but in particular, this program has been set up by the charities involved to try and provide an extra boost for disadvantaged students who we think are likely to have had a particularly negative experience of lockdown. And just to go one step further, we also recognize that that's not the same thing as saying it's only kind of low attainers. That might be across the spectrum of attainment, but in particular, we think students who are eligible for the pupil premium, for example, are likely to need an extra boost going through this really difficult year. And that's what the NTP has been set up to focus on. And Robbie, I know Boris Johnson's funding announcements. Is the funding set aside to support most able students, for example? Yeah, so the NTP is really targeted at students who are eligible for the pupil premium. And that's across the spectrum of attainment, as I mentioned. So it will be up to schools to select the type of tutoring that they think will be most beneficial. That might be via the academic mentors. It might be via, for example, PhD students who are working with a charity supporting some really high attainers preparing for exams. Or it might be making sure you've got really experienced teachers who also work as supply teachers, providing an extra boost for students who are struggling with literacy at the start of secondary school. Sure. So I'm going to come into some details in a moment. But for everyone watching, I'm going to just put a couple of surveys on your screen. So if you can just send some responses to it, just be nice to know who you are and the context in which you work. And I'm going to activate a little survey myself outside of Zoom for your mobile phone devices just for your chance to have a, I guess, a kind of free-for-all response. So I'm just going to put these on your screen. I'm just going to give us all 30 seconds or so to respond to, there should be four or five questions on there, and then I'll put the results on your screen. So in 30 seconds I'll come back. Okay. So I can see results coming in. I'm on a split screen here. So I'm just going to make sure that you can actually see my slides. So that would be a good check. And I'm also going to get, let's see, make sure that you can see the results shortly. So I'm going to ping those your way. I can see we've had 81, 82 results. So I'll give you another 30 seconds, everybody. Hi, sorry. I can't seem to submit. So you should be able to see the survey on your screen. I'll just make sure you can, there should be, you should be able to see that on your side. Yeah, I've got that. I just can't seem to submit it. Okay, my apologies. I'll try another survey in a second to see if we have any luck with that or put your comments through on the chat box. They are all private responses. No worries, I'll do that. Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to put the results up. So I'm going to end the survey and just share those results with you. So hopefully you can see these. If not, I shall make sure you can see them all. So we've got a good sense that the majority headteachers, school leaders and teachers predominantly primary, secondary school. Most of you are saying that you're coping and you're working in a very challenging situation in terms of catch up. And in summary, question four, you're thinking about the tuition partners program. Some of you are thinking about both. Many of you are not sure. So that's why we're here and how you've heard about it and the intervention is your consideration. So I'll make sure that I share all those results with you. I'm going to try one more survey on the next screen. This one, I need you to, let me just give you the instructions here on the screen. So I'm going to stop sharing that last survey. So if you can go to this website, P-O-L-L-E-V.com and then type in my tutor name, teacher toolkit, you will then start to get a little survey. And all I want is just one word. And we're just going to do a before and after having stuck with us the whole session in terms of your concerns. So just put that in the chat box for everybody. Okay, and I'm going to just switch this screen so we can start to see people's responses. So the website you need on your mobile phone device or on another tab on your laptop screen is P-O-L-E-V.com forward slash teacher toolkit. So question I'm asking, what do you see is the greatest barrier to the national tutoring program and its success? And let's see, so the more results we have, the larger the word. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to hide the responses for now. I'm going to give you another 10, 20 seconds. And then we'll see what your greatest issues are. And on that note, I'll just prepare Robbie with my next question and I'll bring him in. The national tutoring program, Robbie, is it going to be around just for COVID or what are the long-term plans to help people's capture? Thanks, Ross. So the national tutoring program has been set up for this academic year then in the entirety of the academic year. But we think that tutoring has the potential to make a really long-term impact on narrowing the gap. And I guess one way to think about this is that as a system and as a country, we spend over a billion pounds a year on tutoring, but that typically is targeted at families and people that can afford it. And what the national tutoring program is trying to do is to redress that balance. We want tutoring to be something that constitutes a narrowing the gap rather than widening it as is currently the case in England. One billion pound, that's incredible. Robbie, I'm going to put you on the spot. I'm going to show you the results just as I see them myself and everyone else. And maybe I just get your first responses of that, okay? So there we've got quality and time. I've got no reason, no idea why it's much smaller. So I guess that some of the questions that I've received is the vetting process, quality of tutoring, the safeguarding aspects. Are those some of the common messages that you're also hearing, Robbie? Definitely, and that's really, in a way, encouraging to hear. So one of the insights that we had when we were setting up the NTP was that the tutoring sector and the tutoring that is on offer to schools sometimes is seen as a bit of a wild west. And that's why we think it's really, really important that we can go through a process of supporting schools to say, actually, these are the providers around the country that have a really strong evidence base that have gone through the safeguarding checks that train their tutors really, really well so that we can sort of present to schools and say, these are the approved providers on the tuition partner side. And actually, these are some mentors that have gone through a really rigorous selection and training process. Okay, thank you. So what we're gonna do, everyone, I'm gonna ask you a similar question at the end once we get to the end of the webinar and just compare your responses to your initial concerns. I'm gonna ask Emily to come in now. We're just gonna start getting into the detail. Emily, who are the tuition partners and how have you chosen them and when will the list be available for schools to see? So three questions, who are tuition partners? Have you chosen them and when will the list be available? Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Ross. So really excitingly, we're just coming to the end of our process of selecting tuition partners and we expect to be able to tell people who the approved tuition partners are on the 2nd of November. So that's a really key date. So for schools interested in NTP tuition partners, look on the National Tutoring Program website on the 2nd of November. We will have the list of approved tuition partners and all of the details about the approved tuition partners up on the website then. So we are really happy with the portfolio we've got and we think we've got some kind of very strong group of providers to deliver NTP tuition partner tutoring. Just in terms of a bit of a detail about the process we've gone through. So to select tuition partners, actually probably the next slide is the best one. Thank you. So to select tuition partners, we ran an open and competitive funding call. We had an absolutely incredible response from across the education sector and we had 389 applications from different organizations who wanted to be tuition partners. And that meant we were able to really kind of be very selective and just select those kind of highest quality and best providers that we had a kind of huge pool to choose from. We assessed all of the applications against evidence informed quality standards. So that included kind of how providers select their tutors and the training that they give tutors, their kind of quality assurance processes that providers have in place to monitor delivery across the lifetime of the project, their kind of evidence of impact. So the evidence they have that they have a positive impact, the experience they have of working with disadvantaged pupils and also really vitally the kind of communication plans they have to discuss the focus of tutoring with schools. So we know it's really important for schools to input on the kind of focus of sessions for pupils and to highlight the areas that pupils are particularly struggling with. So we assessed them against all of these quality standards. We selected only those who are very high quality providers against those quality standards. We also assessed all of the bids for kind of value for money and reach and insured that we don't have any kind of geographic cold spots across England. And once we had our preferred providers, we also undertook really detailed due diligence to check on that kind of financial management as organisations. But really importantly, they're kind of data protection and safeguarding practices. So we only accepted people who had exceptional kind of safeguarding practices. So that's the kind of process we've gone through. It's been a really rigorous process over the last four weeks. So we feel like really confident that we've got really high quality providers and we hope kind of talking through that process also gives other people kind of confidence. I suppose two questions to you, Emily. When will the list be available and are you confident that every area of England has some representation? Yeah, so the list will be available on the 2nd of November. So that's the key day to look out for. The list will be on the National Tutoring Programme website. So go on there. You'll be able to search for providers by your kind of school name and also filter for different types of tutoring. And so, for example, online versus face to face and different kind of subjects. We will definitely have coverage right across the country. We've got a good proportion of national providers. But also what is really nice is we've got a good proportion of local and kind of providers in each region so people can choose between kind of very kind of local provision and also kind of more kind of national provision. So I want to come on to the kind of practical aspects. How is tutoring going to take place, you know, coming into school, you know, social distancing? Will it be online in class before school, after school? What are the kind of plans and what subjects are on offer particularly? Yeah, so there's going to be both face to face and online tutoring available and schools can kind of choose which model they would prefer. We also have providers who offer both. So in the event of face to face not being possible those providers can kind of move online and continue provision. We think that schools are kind of best place to decide when tutoring should happen for their pupils. And so they should liaise with their kind of preferred tuition provider to organise session times. But we definitely expect sessions to be available both before and after school, but also because we know attendance can be an issue with before and after school also during the school day if that's when schools prefer tutoring to happen. Just a quick plug. We do have a guide for schools on getting the most from tuition partners on the National Tutoring Program website and that has suggestions around kind of scheduling of sessions. So yeah, that's on the National Tutoring Program website if people want to take a look at that guide. It provides hopefully some helpful advice to schools about these things. Okay, thank you, Emily. And I've got a couple of slides here for everyone just in terms of the academic mentor over you. I don't know if there's anything there that you just want a reference in these two slides, Emily and also the subjects that are here. An opportunity to respond to that. If not, I'll move on and ask Robbie my next question. Yeah, so actually Yalini would be better talking through the academic mentors, the Education Endowment Foundation is looking after tuition partners. But actually just quickly on subjects, this is a really helpful slide because our subjects are the same across tuition partners and academic mentors. And as you can see, those subjects are maths, English, science, humanities and modern foreign languages. For key stage three and key stage four. And primary numeracy and literacy and also for tuition partners, primary science. Okay, thank you. I'm going to bring in Yalini here. Yalini, can you tell everyone a little bit more about the academic mentors program on offer, please? Absolutely, thanks for us. So the academic mentoring program is slightly different in sort of the business model that we're providing. Essentially, we're going to have trained graduates who are going to be employed directly by schools in the most disadvantaged areas to provide that really intensive support in terms of the type of support that they can provide. It's about really curriculum and school aligned work. So they'll be working really closely with classroom teachers to work out what's best for the pupils that the schools are chosen for this. And if we can actually go back to that previous slide for one second, thank you. It'll be very much subject specific. So those subjects that Emily mentioned are the same ones that we're running within the program. The type of work is one to one, one to a small group. It could be revision lessons. It could be sort of support for those people virtually who are shielding. In terms of the contracted hours of work, it's full time. However, schools and mentors can negotiate if that is before school, after school, evenings, weekends, or during the day itself. But what we recommend is that pulling the pupils out of class needs to be done very, very carefully. And methodically and for good purpose. So we're not recommending that that's the only approach. But we will support schools in trying to work out if it is, and if they need some extra support with that. And the final details on this slide, Jonini. Absolutely, yeah. So mentors that we recruit go through a really rigorous selection process. Once they come through, at the end of that process we start matching them. They'll do up to two weeks of intensive training. If they have QTS, they'll do one week. If they don't have QTS, they'll do two weeks. But I want to be really clear that we're not saying that one extra week plugs the gap. What we're saying is that the training that we provide sets the foundation for these mentors to go into school, build relationships with the pupils and the teachers, and then continue their learning process when they're in schools having that impact. We will provide a very strong steer that it has to be disadvantaged pupils that these mentors are working with. The salary is £19,000 a year fully covered by the government. There's a rotor for reimbursements that has been published that's guaranteed for the full year. On-cost need to be paid by the school, but it can come out of your catch-up premium. They're full-time fixed-term until the end of the academic year, and there are three start dates. Now, we have had a small group of mentors go in for this first wave, and the reason for that is that we wanted to build a high-quality programme where we could balance high-quality in terms of the mentors and the placements with getting things happening really quickly. The bulk of the mentors are still to come, and so we welcome schools to put their applications in for sure. Okay, thank you. So I can see lots of comments coming through the chat box, clicking fast. Thank you, Yolini. I'm going to come back to Robbie now. Robbie, how was, you know, we like a huge explosion of educational research across England at the moment. How is the extra support going to work alongside teaching? Will tutors know what's going on in the classroom? And then I'll come to the kind of evidence on tutoring shortly. But just how is it going to work? Absolutely. Thanks so much, Ross. I mean, the number one, I think, principle that we tried to work to across both pillars of the National Tutoring Programme is this idea that the National Tutoring Programme is designed to be a tool for teachers. So we know this is going to be a really, really difficult academic year, and what we want to do is provide additional support to the teachers that are doing an incredible job and have been since March. The way that that works is about making sure that there is guidance from the teachers about the areas in which tutoring would be most beneficial. And that's one of the reasons why starting this programme after half-term I think is really important. We know that lots of assessment work, for example, has been going on in the first half-term. So that curricular alignment is really, really important. And I know when I was teaching English that in some senses, talking about tutors wasn't always helpful because it was somebody who had a different teaching method, who was teaching different strategies for how to write an essay who might not be clued up in the example that we were using. And that's why from the NTP's perspective, it isn't about something separate. It's about the tutors really being guided by the teachers as to how they can move most of these things. I guess the kind of cynical perspective for myself and perhaps maybe others, and you mentioned you referenced it there, how will tutors know what's going on in the classroom? Definitely. Well, that's one of the reasons why the assessment process that Emily and other colleagues in the EEF have gone through is so important. So one of the key assessment criteria is how much experience does this organization, this tutoring organization have of working with schools? And what are the processes that they're going to put in place to make sure that that works? So all of the tutors and providers will have school liaison officers that are really responsible for making sure that when schools get in touch, they can have a really detailed conversation about what does the school need? Which kind of tutors will it work effectively with? And they can be a point of contact or an ongoing point of contact to make sure, for example, all the information about what sort of, you know, COVID security the school has in place is passed on to the tutor and that that is working really, really smoothly. Okay, and now just referencing the Education and Downwind Foundation. I know in my own life as a deputy head teacher, you know, going back, you know, six, seven, eight years, the explosion of the research, you know, originally from the Pupil Premium Toolkit was really instrumental in shaping evidence and where best to put in your efforts. In terms of tutoring and evidence, what can you tell everyone listening? Is there any evidence that online tutoring is effective in teaching children? Thanks, Ros. Yeah, I mean, the Teaching and Downwind Toolkit you mentioned there was actually the project that I started working on at the F about 10 years ago with a team of academics up at Durham. And what came through really consistently there was that the evidence base for both one-to-one and small group tutoring was exceptionally strong. And the reason that this is the intervention we sort of turned to this year is that it's got a consistent evidence base at primary and at secondary level, but also it's something that you can scale up to large numbers relatively quickly. In terms of online, what we did, working with a number of charities, so the EEF and Impetus and Nesta as well, was to draw on some evidence about online tutoring and to actually pilot it. So at the end of the summer term and then over the summer, we worked with over 60 schools and over 1,300 children to test out whether or not online tutoring was a promising way of providing some support during lockdown and over the summer. And the responses we got to that were really, really positive. So over 90% of the kids involved said that tutoring actually really helped them learn and it was really feasible for providers to get that online tutoring up and running. And that's why we think this is a really good bet this year. The academic or at least learning to be an academic in me is now seeking definitions and I'm sure you'll work with the EEF, you've got all this covered. And I know for people listening at primary and secondary, in terms of tutoring, what are your insights with primary children or secondary children or perhaps people working with children in virtual schools are improves. Is there any stronger differences than the other or can we kind of take away kind of strong recommendations for all aspects of tutoring and particularly online tutoring? Thanks, Ross. So in terms of primary versus secondary, I mean, one of the studies that the National Tutoring Programme looked really closely at when we were getting it set up is a study where some university students who were math students received some training and they worked with some primary schools in the Northwest in the Manchester area. And that two-string, which was targeted at year five and six students had a really strong positive effects. We ran a very rigorous randomized control trial and that found a strong positive effect on math learning in primary schools. Another study, which actually the academic mentors pillars really built on was about placing trained graduates in some schools in Birmingham and that was some secondary schools. And again, that had a strong positive effect and that was across maths and English. So we do think there are examples of studies in England in primers and secondaries where it's worked really effectively. In terms of online, we know the evidence base there is growing. So there's less evidence on online than there is face-to-face, which is one of the reasons that we need a very strong evaluation built into the provision this year. But there is clear evidence of a promise of online tutoring and we know that actually online tutoring is one of the things that widened the gap during lockdown. So he actually looked at the amount of online tutoring that was going on and the rates of it between different groups in society. There was a strong increase in online tutoring, particularly for welfare families and that we think widened the gap during school. There was one, I didn't particularly reference disadvantaged students. Any insights there in particular of the disadvantaged students, maybe in virtual schools, are improved, for example. Not exclusively, but in terms of the evidence and definitions, anything you can tell us there. Definitely, so there are fewer studies in virtual schools and improves, but actually the model that I mentioned with primary schools in Manchester has been tried out in some alternative provision schools and it's had some really promising initial findings. And the differential impact, so you mentioned what is the impact on disadvantaged students. Actually, some of those studies that I mentioned have shown a particularly large impact on disadvantaged people. So we do think as well as being an approach that works across the board is a particularly positive effect for disadvantaged students, which is why we think this is such a strong bet. OK, thank you, Robbie, for answering all my additional questions. I'm going to ask Emily to come in here. Emily, I'm watching the chat box here. The things that I'm seeing pop up are continuity, technical issues, you know, the technology, the Wi-Fi in some cases, the money and the time. What sort of costs are we talking about for a single lesson, a group session and how do schools go about claiming the 75 percent? Yeah, so firstly, obviously schools can choose either face to face or online. So if for their pupils, they think it's going to be challenging for the people to do online for whatever reason, or because of school technology, absolutely face to face will be an option. We would expect all of this tutoring, you know, obviously, we don't know what's going to happen in the future. We haven't got a crystal ball. So if schools closed, obviously moving online would be sensible. But at the moment, we're expecting all of this tutoring, including the online to happen at school, partly to remove any kind of technology barriers. ES is going to pay 75 percent of the session costs direct to the proof. Oh, I think is someone trying to come in or is it just a bit of feedback? I think it's just a bit of feedback. Well, I'll ask our co-host just to just filter some of the microphones just for the benefit of everyone. OK, I'm going to carry on. So he is going to pay 75 percent of the session costs direct to the approved tuition partners. And that's so schools won't have to go through any kind of fiddly process to claim the 75 percent back. So the 75 percent will already be covered. They will just then pay the straightforward. There's going to be no headaches for school leaders who are very time poor and don't have that freedom and time to do these things. That will all be sorted for them. Yeah, so that's that's the hope with this model that firstly, EF will have approved the quality based on kind of evidence standards and the other things we've gone through. So people won't have to worry about checking that quality themselves because it's pre-done, plus we will prepay the 75 percent. So schools just pay the remaining 25 percent. There will be a range of costs depending on the model. So as we've said, we are funding a range of models. So one to one, one to one to three face to face. And also one to one, one to two, one to three online. So obviously one to three online is going to be the cheapest. But then there are some providers who will provide much more specialist one to one tutoring for pupils with SEND or pupils in alternative provision. And that will be the kind of most expensive model. Just I think it's helpful to give people a sense of cost. I was going to ask you that. What are we talking about here? What is the price? So as I said, there is a range. But I also know it's helpful to give people a cost. So I want to give people a kind of sense of the average cost. So on average, it will be around 400 pounds for a 15 hour block. So that that comes to 26 pounds an hour per pupil with schools kind of paying 25 percent of that cost. So just to clarify, 26 pound per hour on average, the school would pay 25 percent of that 26 pound. Yeah. So on average, it's 26 pounds per hour per pupil because obviously some groups are one to three with schools paying 25 percent of that. And with the school, only paying a quarter of the cost. Exactly. And across all models, if you want a more specialist provision, it would be more expensive, as we said. But you would still only pay 25 percent of the cost. And a total of the 15 hours. I guess a kind of a question from me. And can I choose how to spread those 15 hours? How much of that is directed off free free range? Yeah, I'd say the 15 hours comes very much from from the evidence base, which suggests you need at least 12 hours to have have the impacts that we're talking about. And we realize that tendons might not be kind of a sense. So that's where the kind of 15 hours comes from. We want I think this goes back to one of your other questions, actually, Ross, about kind of sustaining. We want people to have sustained blocks of 15 hours from the same tutor. And we suggest that this is done kind of in subsequent weeks. So we think the best way of getting the most from this is to have 15 hours over 15 weeks. However, we also recognize that for primary pupils, an hour's tutoring is a long time. And so for those schools might choose to, for example, split into half an hour blocks and have to half an hour blocks a week for older children or where this is appropriate. People might suggest having one and a half hour blocks, particularly kind of before an exam and obviously having fewer blocks, but still having the 15 hours. Sure. I'm going to throw in an extra question to you, Emily. You know, we should never assume safe gardens common sense practice. And I know you've gone through a rigorous vetting process, which you've already explained. And, you know, with self isolation, already taking place, you know, put lockdowns in different parts, where the face to face switches to online delivery. Can you just reassure people watching? You know, kind of the expectations of tutors and some of the things that you are recommending or have vetted just for kind of reassurance and clarity for people who are still not sure if this is something they're going to buy into. Yeah, that's a really good question. So for online providers, we had a higher bar in terms of safeguarding. So we had we had a kind of higher bar that they needed to pass and they needed to have specific practices for kind of safer online delivery. So so we have put them, as you say, through this kind of rigorous process checks, they they meet up to the bar. Obviously, schools should also follow their own safeguarding practices and also the tuition partners they select will be able to provide their safeguarding practices to schools. And obviously, as with all providers in schools, schools should make sure they see those and make sure they're kind of happy with them. But we're happy that they're meeting a kind of very high high standard. OK, thank you, Emily, Yarlini, I'm going to bring you in for a couple of questions here. Can I just come in quickly? I've had some there's been some questions in the chat and then they're about tuition partners, so I think it would be helpful. Sure, I don't know if it's everyone else, but you might just get a bit static, Yarlini. I'm going to cut you up. I can't hear you. You're going to have to repeat all of that, Yarlini. It's actually Liberty that's speaking on. I have one from Abby that says that the tuition provider isn't on the list, but it's. OK, I'm going to have to. Liberty, whoever's talking through my internet is not really working. Post some questions through the chat box, and we'll try and answer those questions at the end. I do apologise. Yarlini, if you're still there, we've spoken quite a lot about the tutor side of the programme. Can you give me a bit more of an explanation of the academic mentoring programme and how it will work and how many mentors will be available in the school? Absolutely. So as I mentioned before, across the year, we're looking to place between 1,000, 1,500 mentors in all regions of the country. Each school can apply for up to two mentors, and that just means that we're able to make sure there's equity and a spread of that resource. So these mentors are going to come to the school, essentially with all of the recruitment processes tidied up. They will have been vetted through a rigorous selection process. Their DBS will have been completed. We will have done various checks and things like that and sort of deliver the mentor, hopefully, to the door. They'll be able to essentially work in whatever way the school themes fit. So maybe that some schools say, actually, we want you to do some virtual support, if that's the case, because the mentor is employed by the school directly, the school will just provide whatever technology is required to do that virtual support. Equally, if the mentor is working in schools, what would happen is that the line manager or the classroom teacher they're assigned to, they would have some dedicated time to get to know each other, get to know the pupils and make sure the mentor is working in a really curriculum-aligned way. What teachers first will do, though, once we've done the initial training and then the mentor starts school, will provide ongoing training throughout the year. So monthly training sessions, it'll be in a variety of really accessible ways, sometimes pre-recorded lectures, sometimes synchronous sessions that are live like this. And that training is going to be responsive to the mentor needs. And the way that we'll find that out is that once the mentors start school, they'll have their line manager in school that will support them, but they'll also have a dedicated support role within Teach First. That person is called their curriculum and training lead. They're going to be catching up with the mentors at least once a month, if not more, depending on what the mentor needs and making sure that there is a really good flow of communication between the line manager in school, the curriculum and training manager at Teach First and the academic mentor. So we're seeking to make this as easy as possible for schools to get the mentor in, but then we're not just letting go after that. We're saying, whilst the mentor is the school's employee, we're still here to meet those additional training needs throughout the year until they finish their placement. You mentioned the graduates. What kind of people have been applying and you going through the vetting process and how do you imagine them working in the school? I know you've kind of picked on that just there, but what kind of people are we seeing part of the program? We're seeing a real range of people, actually. So we're seeing some really, really high-calibre graduates who have come out of university and who are really passionate and excited about education, but perhaps not quite ready to do teacher training just yet. And so they're wanting to get involved. They're wanting to help during this really difficult time. So they're really eager to learn as a point of interest for this group of the 190-odd mentors that we just had in training. We only had about three or four missed a session here or there, and that was for reasons that we knew about. So these are people who are dedicated to learning and dedicated to helping. We also have people who have QTS, who haven't got teaching jobs this year or who are taking a bit of a break from teaching, for example. And then we've also got people who are really experienced teachers who've previously gone into retirement and then seen that there's been a huge need for support in the sector and they're bringing all of their experience. So we've got a huge range. What we're guaranteeing is teach first is that they will all have the fundamental knowledge and skills to get into schools and get stuck in. And then we'll keep topping up the additional support where, so for example, there's no doubt that someone who's got 30 years experience teaching who's just retired and come back in, they're going to probably have an easier time settling and then perhaps a graduate who's new to the game. So our job, our curriculum and training leads job, teach first job here is to make sure that all of those mentors have the support that they need to have the impact that we know that they can have once they're in school. Sure. So it's quite a fascinating body of work that you've done. And I'm just reading the chat boxes also in terms of, we've already talked about the cost. You've got the salary there on the screen that you have money. Are there any kind of hidden costs on costs for the school, for the individual? So the salary is set at £19,000 a year and that is fixed. Now schools want to pay their mentor more, they're really welcome to, but what will be reimbursed is that £19,000. The ESFA has just published a bulletin last week outlining the exact payment schedules. The on costs, that's all your national insurance and all that wonderful stuff. That does come out of, so the school is responsible for paying that but it comes out of the COVID catch up premium. So when you add those things together, it shouldn't touch your actual normal school budget. And the mentor is an employee of the school. So they are subject to the same benefits and the same conditions as any other employee. So if you give all your support staff and teaching staff a laptop, you're going to need to give your mentor a laptop too so they can do their job as best as possible. The training is all part of the package. There's no additional cost for that at all. Do you have any, I guess, a pie-in-the-sky type question, but if you take a large secondary school in a city across England, what are your expectations of number of tutors and mentors they might buy into? If we take a student population, maybe 1,500 children and a 100 adults, have you got a kind of model of what you think or hope people will be signed up to? So each school can have a maximum of two mentors. And I think that that's the number that we, you know, between DFE and the National Treating Program, we came up with that because it, because we wanted to make sure we could spread the resource. And I think we need to see how that goes this year. Now, there isn't necessarily at this stage a particular sort of cap on the tuition partner. So potentially a school of that size, you know, it's open to kind of have the best of both worlds, essentially. They could have the, if we can find, and I need to be really clear about this, we, when we talk about matching a mentor to a school, we're talking about finding somebody that has the right phase specialism, the right subject specialism, and that lives within traveling distance to the school. So those are some pretty, I suppose those are indicators of factors that we have to work around. And sometimes it can be challenging. If we can work with that and get you two mentors into the school, it might not be enough. And then that's okay. We can hope, we would then direct you to have a look at tuition partners and see what kind of top up there is. The other thing as well is that we hope, we advocate to each first, we very much feel this program needs to continue for longer as well. And when we look at the extension of the program, it'll be fantastic to look at whether or not this model has worked and what needs to change going forward. Thank you, Yolani. Robbie, I'm gonna bring you in now. Now I've talked about some of the criticism. I'm actually gonna put on this live survey for everybody. So before I show the results, I just remind everyone back on your devices, if you can go to polyv.com forward slash teacher toolkit or go to polyv.com and then type in teacher toolkit. At the start of the session, obviously one of the questions asked, are you considering using the intervention? Some of you wanted things clarified. Many of the issues, the technology, the vetting process, safeguarding the continuity time. So know what you know now, is there one word that sums it up? And I'm gonna bring Robbie on now to talk about some of the criticisms that you've seen and heard. And then we'll reveal some of your results. I can see the results already coming in in the bottom right hand corner. And then we'll see if we can catch Robbie off guard here, but he's well mastered in these types of things. So Robbie, initial criticism that you've been receiving. Thanks, Ross. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things is an incredibly challenging time. And we know that the expectations and the need in the system is huge. And in a way, there's an urgency. And one of the things that some schools might say is, well, why don't you just give us the money directly and we'll find our own tutors? And that's certainly been one of the questions that I think is right to answer. I think the reason for why we've taken the approach we have at the ANTP is twofold. One is that we know that there's a huge amount of logistics and a huge amount of checking done to sort of wade through this Wild West. And all of the work that Emily set out about vetting these providers is designed to save schools time in a really, really difficult year. The second point is about geographical spread. So we know that actually there are certain parts of the country where you can access tutoring. So if you're in London and you're a young person, the chances of you having had tutoring are actually a little bit over half. So about 52% of students in London have had tutoring. If you go to the north of England, it's half of that. So there's this regional divide and there's this access problem that we've had for many, many years. And what we think the national tutoring can try and do is spread that and even that out and actually make sure that in parts of the country where actually it's been really hard to access this, is it approach that we know is very effective, that hasn't been available. So that's what the NTP is in part trying to do. I'm trying to do that onto a positive there. If I come back to the kind of uptake you've had from people applying and you say you've got that wide distribution across the country, can I just ask for reassurance that that is the case? Yeah, definitely. I mean, we've been really, really struck by the number of schools registering on our website. So we're spending out a weekly national tutoring program bulletin and now it's going out to about 18,000 subscribers every week, which probably doesn't hit your stats yet, Ross. But we think it's pretty good in quite a new program. So I'd really encourage any of your listeners go on the national tutoring program website and register because we actually do think that demand is gonna be is really high and we want schools particularly in really deprived areas of the country to know about the program and to be able to access it from the get go. Now, I'm gonna put on all the emails and web addresses for everyone shortly. So Robbie, here we go, I'm gonna put you off guard. Here are the responses, about 53 replies. I'm just gonna change the settings to a word clown. So here we've got, so we've got, again, I've no idea why this is smaller than expected, but we've got interesting, hopeful, optimistic, confused. So the larger the words have been responses from people taking part. I just put some of these comments here for you, Robbie, just to respond to one or two of them as they come through. How can you reassure someone that still finds all this a bit daunting? Definitely. I mean, I think one of the things that I would really say is go and have a look and get into the information. We know that absolutely it's right that you make a really considered decision. But I hope particularly on the second of November, after half term, when you'll be able to go and have a look, for example, at the tuition partners page and you'll see who's out there and what's on offer in your area, that that extra information will help schools make an informed decision. And as I say, we think that this is something that's designed to support teachers and we know from many of the pilot studies and previous research that's gone on that that's happened, but we wanna widen that opportunity now at this point. And I'm reminded that Leigh Elliott made that you'll know very well, Steve Higgins' book, What Works. It's not what you do. It's the way that you do it that matters to coin their banana arm phrase. And I'm just looking at some of the comments coming through you. There's a good range of positive to negative on the spectrum, but I think there's a real opportunity for us all to make a bit of a positive difference on our disadvantaged kids. So I would encourage you all to at least investigate if you're still unsure. I'm just gonna finish with the last couple of slides and I can stop this survey. I know Jack's already put it in the contact box for you all, but there is the contact email address. So I can just ping that back through in the chat box for you all. And the website, I will get that on to you now. So here it is there, that's the website. So the nationalcheaterin.org.uk. I'm gonna just spend a moment just going through the chat box, but ultimately we're finished I'm gonna call it five minute early finish which is good for everyone's mental health. Sorry for the little technical sandwich in the middle. Thank you for all for signing up and participating. I know many of you are watching, you'll be either on half-term at home teaching remotely or some of you have made to the words the end of your first half-term like you've never ever known before in your entire teaching career. So from me, I'm wishing everyone a happy half-term and much-needed rest. I just wanna say thank you to all everyone taking part behind the scenes and particularly Mark, Liberty, Jack and behind the scenes helping all the admin side here. So these things are a lot of work to get these things available to you. And to Robbie, Emily and Yolini for your contributions and you're bearing me with my summer ad hoc questions thrown your way. I don't know if you've got your Halloween costume planned for the next weekend, at least it might be a virtual one for many of us but I hope you're gonna do something to relax and I hope this national tutoring program will make a difference to your peoples. Other than that, I'm gonna officially say good night. Thank you for watching. I'm just gonna monitor the chat box and just put in some one or two responses. But for me, you're free to go and I hope to see you again. So all the best for me and again, thank you to all our guests. Ross. Hello there. Hi, it's Jenny Cassidy from Chillwall School in Liverpool. Hello. I don't know if you can help me, I did put it on the chat. I've put in for an academic mentor and I've had a letter back, an email back sorry recently just to say that we've been unsuccessful on this round and obviously because of the numbers are quite low, I can see why. Do you know if we have to reapply for the second round or once we're... I'll ask one of our co-hosts either to talk to you privately or maybe they can just sign post to something here now to give you a kind of answer to your... I can probably just... I managed to catch that just before I clicked leave. I'll answer that really quickly and so you don't need to reapply. The school is still in the same pool. All that we wouldn't have been able to find somebody that had the subject specialism, the phase specialism and could travel to your school. So you sit in the place of the pool and we're already working on trying to rematch or trying to find you a match for January but you don't need to do anything. Can I just one more thing? When you look at the context of our school, do you look at the kids that we get in or where our post codes, because actually our post code doesn't reflect the context of the kids? Does that make sense? Yes, but it might be something... Can I... This is going to sound like I'm in front of the question, I'm not. No, not at all. Nobody's going to take longer for me to answer than I would like. The best thing to do to get a really direct response is to email the academic mentoring at teach first email address. So that's managed by our school's team and they'll be... That one there. It's not that one, actually, Ross. I'll put it in the chat box. Chat box. Nick mentoring. OK, and if there's anyone else still watching with any questions, I'll stay on the line. I'm going to go through all the chat box and then I'll try to answer as many as I can in the follow-up recording. So I'm going to send the recording to you first thing tomorrow. Thanks, Ross. My pleasure. Take care. Thanks, Yolini. Any other questions from anyone? There's your chance to grab me or any of our hosts still on the line. Otherwise, it's time to put your feet up. Put the mark into one side. Just got that email address in there for... Lovely. Thanks very much. There it is, academic mentoring at teachfirst.org. Thanks very much. I've screenshot it. I'll go. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your time. Bye. Bye-bye. So people putting questions in the chat box. I am going to go through them all and I will try and reply either in a kind of sequence of facts, being some frequent ask questions when I send a video out tomorrow. But I'm just going to kind of stay on the line and try and go through many of the comments. But if you don't have anything pressing to be answered right now... It's 20 hours. There's my little alarm for eight o'clock. So I'm going to hang it up. But if you've got any more questions now is your time. If you want to put something through your voice, through your microphone. Otherwise, I shall mute, say goodbye, and I'll start to just go to the chat box for two, three minutes and then I'll reply to you in the morning. Have a lovely half-term, everybody.