Data from our education charity partner Teach First shows interrupted learning as a result of the pandemic has the greatest negative impact on children from less privileged backgrounds and low-income communities.
To help, we’ve donated pro bono services and volunteering hours to support tutoring for those who need it the most, and provided laptops to thousands of children, schools and organisations that otherwise would be without.
National tutoring
As part of the Government’s plans to help pupils and teachers make up for lost teaching and learning time, the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) is providing additional support to students whose education has been most affected by school closures.
The NTP’s aim is to make high-quality tutoring available to schools and disadvantaged pupils – it’s research shows that that nine in ten children say tutoring helps them feel more confident with their schoolwork.
From September 2020 to April 2021, three Deloitte colleagues worked with the Education Endowment Foundation, the organisation which set up and managed the delivery of the NTP’s tuition services.
The National Tutoring Programme’s support for organisations like ours, to reach these pupils across the country, is the perfect solution to help schools make up for lost time in the classroom.
Interim CEO, Action Tutoring
Personalised student support
“Before the crisis, disadvantaged pupils were, on average, already 18 months behind their non-disadvantaged peers by the end of secondary school,” said Jen Fox, interim CEO of charity Action Tutoring, a partner of the National Tutoring Programme.
“Projections suggest school closures will widen this gap - some studies suggest by as much as 75 per cent.”
The Education Endowment Foundation has calculated that an intense programme of one-to-one tuition could add as much as five months’ progress to a young person’s schooling.
“Tutoring works to improve grades,” said Jen. “The National Tutoring Programme’s support for organisations like ours, to reach these pupils across the country, is the perfect solution to help schools make up for lost time in the classroom for their disadvantaged pupils.”
Support for 235,000 pupils
Deloitte’s Amy Stewart, a senior manager in our Risk Advisory practice, worked on our pro bono project with the NTP. She worked as part of a small team that took care of important processes that helped to establish the NTP’s tuition services.
This included helping to assess tuition partner applications and ensuring the number and type of tuition partners were adequate to support forecasted demand. The team also worked with the successful applicants to get their partnerships with the NTP off the ground and start delivering tutoring to students.
As a result, the team helped to get 33 providers onboard by the end of October 2020, enabling the NTP to support 235,000 pupils with tutoring in the 2020-2021 academic year.
“With a robust grant application assessment process,” said Amy, “the NTP can be confident that the pupils who participated in the first year of the programme will benefit from tuition from the highest quality providers.”
The pandemic has accelerated changes in how we live and work and we want to play our part in building the digital skills that will help close the digital divide.
Senior Partner and CEO of Deloitte North and South Europe
Closing the digital divide
“All schools are doing their best in a challenging environment yet, with unequal access to the tech needed to study at home, the gap between children from wealthier homes and their poorer peers is greatly exacerbated,” said the CEO of Teach First, Russell Hobby.
To help, we’ve made a commitment to donate 7,500 of our firm’s unused laptops to children, families and schools.
2,400 went to our 26 partner schools across the UK along, with an £8,000 donation to each, to help them meet ongoing COVID-19 requirements. A further 4,500 laptops are being donated in the coming months to our social enterprise partners and other good causes nominated by our people.
“While 7,500 laptops is a fraction of what’s required, that’s 7,500 more people getting the digital access that they otherwise wouldn’t have had,” said Richard Houston, Senior Partner and CEO of Deloitte North and South Europe.
"The pandemic has accelerated changes in how we live and work and we want to play our part in building the digital skills that will help close the digital divide.”
“During this pandemic we all have a role to play to support those most in need,” concluded Teach First’s Russell, “so it’s fantastic to see big businesses like Deloitte stepping forward to help bridge this divide. By coming together, we can help to give every child the best possible chance of a bright future beyond this pandemic.”
Support for schools
Following this pro bono work, our people volunteered with The Access Project and Action Tutoring to provide tutoring support to 64 pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Wider help offered to schools through our 5 Million Futures social impact programme includes ongoing support for school leadership, coaching and guidance for teachers and mentoring pupils – all done remotely throughout the pandemic.
We’re also supporting the expansion of the National Professional Qualification with Teach First, helping to increase teacher retention and progression into leadership.
Contacts:
Laura Parsons, PR senior manager
+44 20 7303 0885 | Email Laura
Sue Gibson, PR manager
+44 20 7303 3156 | Email Sue