hi everybody welcome good afternoon thanks for joining us for nesta talks to today these events are put on by nesta and designed to be a conversation with today's most interesting thinkers focus on the big topics that define our future

before i properly introduce our guest kim further i should introduce myself i'm raj chande i'm director of nestor's affairs star team our mission is for 2030 is to close a disadvantage gap in early years outcomes we do that through innovation partnerships where we work with local authorities nursery providers early educators and so on helping them innovate with our team of designers behavioural scientists data scientists and more if you're interested in working with us we'd love to hear from you get in touch you can find our contact details on the website

okay back to today we're really pleased to be welcoming co-founder of equal education kim raha uh welcome kim um equal education co-founded by kim works to narrow the attainment gap for vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils who have some of the lowest detainment rates in the country the gap is wider for children in care than other cohorts who consistently experience less positive outcomes than their peers equal education believe this is an injustice and something they're committed to tackling even before the pandemic students from disadvantaged backgrounds as typically measured by those on free school meals or an average 18 months behind their peers uh welcome kim

thank you very much for having me uh

great to have you here before we start the conversation just want to go over some housekeeping about how this is all going to work um we're keen to make this as much of a conversation as the medium allows so please post questions reflections observations in the chat and we'll do our best to draw them into the discussion if you'd like to view closed captions and these are available particularly on the linkedin stream

okay kim to start off our conversation today i'd like to ask why did you set up equal education and what are you what is your your organization doing to narrow the education gap

sure raj i've had first-hand experience of witnessing children and young people unable to self-regulate their emotions for example throwing a chair across the room resulting in violent outbursts in school

i was quite affected by how this manifests itself in labels and adverse outcomes such as exclusions during formative years of a young person's life and when they are developing a sense of identity that will shape their futures almost if you imagine when the brain goes through these fight and flight experiences it becomes difficult or near on impossible to access learning and with this in mind on a larger scale seeing the disjointed and fragmented nature of specialist education provisions we came up with the idea behind equal education

so i worked with my co-founder paul who was a science teacher and private tutor at the time to persuade him the need to set up a vehicle to tackle this deeply entrenched societal challenge around educational inequality and meeting children's educational and social needs i guess to summarise we wanted to attend this oxford and cambridge model of one-to-one tutoring upside down providing targeted and tailored tuition for really vulnerable children and we felt this model could be a positive disrupter and we know that private tuition only too often can exacerbate educational inequality and we felt this is a mechanism for those with fewer resources and to access the trusted intervention and as a result we've been able to attract staff and teachers who are passionate about serving the children we work with

great um so why do you use this model and what are the benefits of this for your cohorts

um because we care about improving these outcomes we believe that children young people are most deserving of receiving this high quality support um for us it's a tried tested proven model and even research from the education endowment foundation shows that actually it makes an average of five months additional progress

i just want to share um a case study um we had a year 10 student who was diagnosed with frederick's ataxia it's a rare inherited disease that causes progressive nervous system damage and mobility problems and this young person was wheelchair-bound bullied in school um and one of our tutors actually worked with them three hours a day for a period of three years is quite a long time um and this student was um able to go from a level three to a level seven sit in icd gcse um was aided by technology so great use of an app that actually converted the text to speech so he could listen to the content just because he suffered with so much fatigue and i think that's just such an example of how one to one allows the trust to be built with this learner and for them to overcome um such barriers to learning

thanks i've got a couple of follow-up questions on that case study and i'm just wondering who who were the tutors there um and what was their background sure so qualified teachers we use we use qualified teachers to do this because teachers know their curriculum they have to teach but alongside that they are a community of teachers that are resilient and really care

in fact raj we have such a community of tutors that for some of these uh teachers they actually refuse and and sometimes they're not on board with private tuition but by the very nature of the children we serve actually do you want to do want to help and support these children thanks and you also mentioned there's a little bit of a process there developing the trust between the tutor and the child can you talk us through how your tutors might typically go about that or how they did it in this case

but yeah absolutely i think first first and foremost it's quite important to know that actually you've got you know yet another adult coming into this this child's life so it is going to take quite a few sessions to build that trust um and to build that rapport and i think often we see this could take any range from anything from three three sessions you know to possibly six or seven um until that student actually feels comfortable to kind of say actually i don't actually understand this can you support me further um so so it's really about understanding that and through the communication with our internal team to support them so you know do we contact at taxi or uk to see actually what support could further be put in place for this student

thanks i used to be a teacher myself and so i recognize what you're saying i think it's a strange thing to seem like a proud moment but having taught some students for a year and a half when someone could say i don't understand what this is that's actually a really lovely thing and just one more thing on the case study i mean i know nobody can really answer this question for sure but do you have a sense of what might have happened for that student what kind of struggles they may have had if it wasn't for your organization and the support they got through y

eah i think the fact that this young person wasn't able to access mainstream education um that their needs were such that actually a specialist school and awaiting a specialist named school provision on their education health care plan it just would have taken so long you know the fact that we were tutoring this student for three years so my concern would have been the loss of learning and the fact that they they were able to go from a level three to a level seven is absolute testament to how much they were able to achieve through this one-to-one tailored education provision for this student um also taking into account that their medical needs um and constant fatigue and actually being able to use technology to further aid their learning so i would have been quite concerned they wouldn't have achieved as well as they have done i mean they're now going on to do a btec level three in ict um which is just yeah it's just very exciting for us you know

i can see that your face comes alive there particularly i can imagine that's the best bit of your job um i'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about you mentioned the evidence around it um the ef have written about um tutoring can you tell us a little bit more about how we know this approach is effective and share any other examples you've got of impact

it's always delightful for us to hear when the student or parents and carers even teachers request the same tutor to come back the next term and choose that student so for us it's really about collecting feedback throughout the tuition program particularly from parents and carers and they provide wonderful accounts of the impact being made i think conversations with designated safeguarding needs were marketing on how the student is willing to raise their hand in class and just just participating just being present um and kind of given the divergent needs age ranges and nature of our provision i think success is is varied and capturing this in a standardized way can be quite a challenge um you know we're not just looking sometimes at just the gcse results for example um so we're really passionate about measuring our social impact and kind of adding to the evidence based and having conducted an external uh impact report i think this really shows there's been there's been high levels of impact on the confidence and the attainment um so measuring the impact of our tuition 2021 for example um using a combination of student surveys

i guess the academic attainment as well but we're able to kind of closely work with schools and local authorities to help prepare students for exams and look at their exam results but we really value when schools volunteer this information and obviously i really appreciate the kind of pressures that they're under and capturing the student voice is particularly important i think as we all know in this industry um how crucial it is to hear from the learner themselves um and

i think for i think one one example would be really useful to know is this when we implemented a framework that our students what they want to achieve from tuition and measures their self-confidence enjoyment and resilience and last summer our tuition programme with the royal springboard expanded by 600 percent reaching 30 plus students with an average student approval rate and not i think it's 92 for how beneficial they felt tuition was um and again just reporting confidence and enjoying their subjects

yeah i think that's an enormous achievement i've got some more questions though i mean what's your sense of what's necessary to make this work and i can imagine sometimes for everyone's best efforts uh it you know this approach doesn't quite get off the ground and other times it sounds like it's really successful if you've got an idea of what are the sort of like magic ingredients that really make it work is it the way tutors come into it is it the support from schools or other services you know give us give us a bit of a background on that

yeah absolutely i think historically raj this probably has been an assumption that it's quite an expensive intuition intervention and so actually it's really kind of helping to understand that and how impactful it really is to have that one-to-one um and how this works really well for students um and that and actually there's something about about the relationship and the careful kind of matching of that tutor to that student and i think that's really important and and sometimes that the relationship may not get off the ground and i think that's something to be mindful of but actually how do we then stop that student from feeling like actually just because that relationship didn't work this whole intervention isn't going to work at all so i think there's something really careful about matching um the tutor to to that student and their particular interests and whether they use some context-based learning and

i think an example of that comes to mind we had a student who absolutely detested maths but we had such a wonderful creative history teacher that actually used um dates um um and the student was you know lost history and so it used dates to actually then evolve that learning process and use that kind of context-based learning and that seemed to have worked really well but but collectively yes it is about getting schools on board and i'm really kind of supporting them in that process and i think also you don't want to add to the administrative burden that's already um as you'll know as a as a former teacher raj that that also is about the pressure that teachers are under

thanks um okay i mean i think you just sort of alluded to it earlier but we were talking about the pandemic and tutoring especially being used uh or some schools trying to use it as a response there i mean what are the key challenges there's so much news coverage about this but from your perspective what do you think the key challenge is opposed by the pandemic and how do you think we can address them absolutely i mean the school closures you know we know what protective factor school is um particularly for vulnerable children almost providing this kind of welfare check you know has has someone seen the child are they okay today if they even had a hot meal for example so one i think there's something around the the the kind of care aspect also the kind of loss of learning um and i think what's been quite concerning is how the amount of children that haven't even returned back to the classroom so the severe anxiety the exacerbated mental health and the the loss of learning as i mentioned the kind of gaps and learning i think there's been media kind of coverage you know which been widespread around this um and i and i think what's really important to know is how how shocking it was to realize how many homes didn't have access to technology and wi-fi and data and even just a suitable learning environment you know whether that was in the home or whether that was in the educational setting

so what um so given the technological i mean like we're all very lucky all of this i can tell we're all sorts out here on webcams and and some other gizmos to make us look better on them and so on uh you know what the main ways that you how does that technological barrier manifest itself and what you're trying to do how does that cause additional problems for you and how do you try and work your way around it pre pre-pandemic uh we had quite a traditional view that actually it'd be great for that tutor to sit down next to that child and and tutor them and teach them and there was quite a magic in that relationship being built lo and behold bestowed by a global pandemic no one's going out school closures and i think that's what really when we realized gosh that how many children just we can't move this tuition online because actually children don't even have access to devices access to the internet for example and we were really passionate about this and felt that actually that you know here we are in this 2020 2021 etc that actually into children don't have access to this so we um apply for a grant with innovate uk we were successful and this allowed us to roll out some ipads and the reason why we chose ipads is actually we wanted to get a device that was so secure enough that what we didn't want to do is open up pandora's box um so that children could access on towards websites for example even um gaming even certain games that have chat room features and that's fine you want children to play games you know you learn through playing games but actually how do we then also safeguard children um and this is wonderful because we were able to then still continue to tutor children um by providing these ipads and they could still access their learning um and actually this was actually featured in a report with vodafone closing the digital divide um one of the things that this link will be shared by all means but also then what what apps are we using um i think there's something to be taken into account that actually there's so much out there how do you know what's right for that student so we actually teamed up with some brilliant minds at ucl um and spoke to the students there did a research piece around actually these apps are probably best for learning um and i think what's really supported that is a national tutoring program you know committing to to put money in to catch up tuition and being committed to helping schools and local authorities and to really maximize the subsidy available for tuition so i think really it's about having that trusted adult a mentor kind of supporting you through that education journey thanks and just a quick note to for the audience and please do add any questions you've got in the chat and i'll try and weave them into the conversation but certainly about seven or eight minutes we'll turn to audience questions so get them lined up so maybe you can start thinking about them just going back to thinking about the technological divide i mean i've sort of noticed some schools some education organizations thinking are brilliant actually now we've been encouraged to embrace these different technologies it's better and you know maybe now you've started delivering some tuition through ipads you know maybe students have got a permanent record of their work and you know those sorts of things is there any aspects of it now that you go do you know what even though we can do tuition one-to-one we're going to keep some of these technological aspects absolutely i think we're in and i think a hybrid model definitely needs to be considered and i think for some students this works really well but i think what we do need to be mindful of is are we looking at a student with quite acute learning needs can every child access um education for a device you've got children that got severe anxiety is that child comfortable but turning the camera on for example and if not how does that lack of eye contact affect their learning so i think i think there needs to be a hybrid approach by all means but i think it does very much bait is very much based on that individual learner's needs thanks and just just last question maybe on the pandemic although it's related to a lot of things i think sometimes outside of outside of education settings the world is acting as if okay that's all finished now the whole covert thing and we've all just sort of moved on i mean what's your experience seeing that do you still see many children are missing large periods of school because they're worried about going in or their family members have covered and then that means they've got additional tuition needs sadly that is the case and children are so anxious to go back into school they may have had a parent who's been affected by cove

quite severely and as a result just that anxiety that's that's manifesting and then sometimes it's it's a lack of access for them to be seen perhaps by the cam service just surely because of waiting time because of the sheer number of students uh young people and children that are waiting to be seen so we certainly are and and actually then it's it's it's really back to the first point that i made that actually how do we then build that resilience in them to say okay how can we work with you before you even start to access that education piece so it's a huge concern um and a lot of children are missing education as a result and i guess that's where we step in to become the alternative education provider thank you um next question i mean i i assume you're not working entirely alone you've already mentioned how important the partnership is with the school can you tell us a little bit about the role partnerships play really strong advocate in in partnership so i just feel that education cannot be done in a silo and i think this ranges from our partnerships with schools and local authorities um and on a bigger scale the fair education alliance um which is an alliance of um like-minded charity and social enterprise leaders and and i think for one it's that it's that knowledge sharing sharing of that best practice and what's working um and that effective multi-agency working i think this really ties in quite closely to safeguarding as well you know we hear time and time again we need to look at some serious case reviews to see actually why did this did this particular um team speak to this team to further safeguard that child um so i mean i guess for us it really is working with others in this space to just want to increase the impact but i think there's such a shared mission and values that actually people are doing something really great in that space and how actually how do we bring this together so we're so passionate about partnerships i guess we want to really engage with the care lever community more so saying we have all the answers but that lived experience can really impact on what we're doing and how do we do it better thanks um what kind of alumni i mean how long have you been going actually one thing i've only mentioned at the beginning yeah so uh in september we'll be in our 10th year wow okay and do you have like alumni that you keep in touch with uh care leavers or others where you're keeping in touch with how they're doing yeah so this is this is something that um we absolutely record and see actually how how are children and young people doing i think what i would like to highlight and i will will definitely share this is an interview with stephen a care leaver who actually contacted us on twitter about his experience and why he believes every young person in care should have access to tutors and the importance of education i guess really raj the place that we'd really love to be in would be um to have a board actually to have an alumni board because it's these young people that can really share their experiences tell us what works what didn't work um and i feel that that's absolutely crucial to how we kind of shape the service going forward yeah no i can imagine that's true in the dream world some of them come back and do some tutoring for you as well it makes it absolutely amazing and i'm sure there's a lot of people here listening going all right this is this is great i mean like they're probably interested in education uh interventions generally but they're probably thinking okay this also sounds something i might want to get involved in personally i mean what can we do as on an individual level and society as a whole yeah i think i think for us first and foremost join us as a tutor if you are a qualified teacher we'd love to hear from you um uh and even if you're not a qualified teacher as i said that we strongly believe in partnerships and there are some other fantastic um charities and social enterprises in the space that also provide uh tuition but also just really raising the awareness about the education attainment gap the education inequality um i think for us is is crucial i think there's that there's so much funding in this space you know that and i think we really should be providing this high quality support but also you know if you are i guess in innovation there's innovation that needs to be had in this space so really challenging conventional norms um that we kind of that we have around education and we have the best education in some ways here in the world but yet we're failing a third of its children and some really perplexes me even even now and i think for me it's about raising the awareness and needs of our children and young people and wanting to show that we're really inclusive to really kind of using positive behavior support strategies but i guess on a bigger scale really early intervention and to ensure there is a safety net for vulnerable children um and i think from a wider perspective actually how do we then how does that then prevent homelessness substance misuse uh county lines etc no one wakes up thinking yes i want to be homeless today it's a set of experiences have possibly led them to that thanks um started getting a couple of questions in we had one question in advance from jennifer johnson thanks for your question uh jennifer asked what are your thoughts about you the use of film to provide a way into reading and writing for pupils who may not have had access to books or written materials inside the home gosh i think i think that's a wonderfully creative way um for children to access um materials and and i guess this really comes into i mean are we to then perhaps saying jennifer we need to have some technology here this goes back into my other point that actually yes and it sounds very innovative i think that would be wonderful i also do feel we don't want to perhaps lose some of that uh the access to books and by some material and also this kind of as we know research saying that actually that children should be read to and how that increases their confidence but i'm fully in support of something such as using films i think it's quite very creative and innovative thanks i mean we um we did some work a little while ago actually before i write i'm not sure if this was the light of day but one thing we were interested in is the use of subtitles to improve literacy um have you ever tried using those strategies as well just to sort of help children read more often if they're going to be watching some programs which want some subtitles so actually i i i'm now that i'm hearing you say that um raj it's probably something that that um i wonder our teachers probably have used um particularly when they probably have been teaching teaching online and how actually that supports students and i particularly think about my students with english as an additional language and actually how that would further support perhaps actually just seeing it written there how much that would support their learning um and picking up picking up the additional language yeah it makes a lot of sense i grew up with modern films on in the background in subtitles up there this is standard so i can imagine that it does help do it now i i do so i i find it quite useful um a couple more questions coming in the chat thanks everybody keep them coming in one from john kohler what do you think is the role of education businesses in leveling the playing field

i that's i think that's a fantastic question um they have a huge role to play really i think we um personally ourselves have been really advocating that sometimes students won't always be able to achieve the high standards that are required for apprenticeships for example you know having having the five a c's and actually what do we do we're missing out on so much talent here in a generation you know lost of of kind of the next the next leaders or whoever whoever they may go on to be so i think really it's it's it's focusing on how they can further support further come into schools support schools and have conversations and just making sure that they they're doing their part in kind of saying actually this is available and access and accessible for all so i think they've got a huge role to play um you know and that can run from kind of educational pieces to whether that's funding pieces um or whether that's just um yeah kind of something around innovation and getting them more involved in what they're doing so because it's learning it to be had in that alone i'm interested in something you mentioned earlier to talk about inclusivity and especially when you talk about children and care children's special educational needs uh that isn't always at the level it could be what's the sense of you know there's so many technological products being used in schools and businesses providing various platforms for teachers to help them do you think they're always doing what they could do to address um everybody's needs yeah i think i think this is quite this is quite a challenge to be honest with you when i talk about the individual needs particularly for this cohort you know whether that ranges from dyslexia does that range from adhd um it's really difficult as to what these digital apps are kind of measuring what's their baseline and what are they kind of measuring this against so i think i think there is a lot more to be done in that space in terms of what is available but i think it it provides quite a challenge quite a challenge for teachers actually because you cannot just use one blanket one that may that may um that you think may be suitable for the whole class just because it's a varying level of needs and we've seen that from from the students that we get and hence hence taking the preferred model of that one-to-one tuition right okay thanks if anybody's got any follow-up questions on that please just add them to the chat especially if you've got more direct experience of working with children with special educational needs and to me is the next question from astrid uh thanks for the great presentation kim um astrid uh works with an organization learning with parents who run the parental engagement forum and use a tech platform to promote parental engagement in children's learning it's closing time again and they'd love to hear more about how your program is working with parents to support children's learning we haven't heard so much about their role so far with your work absolutely um thank you astrid as i mentioned that education cannot be done in a silo um and so really what this is is really strong conversations with parents carers um whoever that that primary caregiver is to actually really help them understand that tuition isn't just some a tutor coming in and uh sitting down with that child but actually what can you do once that tutor is gone you know what does what is the learning what is that student um doing thereafter and how is this being embedded and impacting on their work whether they're in mainstream education or whether it's just the tutor that they sit that they see so i think this goes back to my earlier earlier point about this effective um strategic partnerships you know whether that is kind of schools but and and families too so i think what there needs to be there definitely needs to be much more in this space and i think there's a lot of pressure put on on schools and teachers and to involve involve parents more but i think that there probably is a huge piece there and we do that with our teacher community actually in terms of kind of training them various training courses which are then conversations are obviously then being had with with those parents and carers

thanks uh it's a really good question i mean i've got a follow-up question on this i mean what do you think would be the most helpful thing the parents the children that you work with the parents will carers are the children that you work with and what's the most helpful thing they might do before during and after a session with one of your tutors just like in concrete terms can you make it come alive for us you know do you want them to help the child like make sure they're all prepared and then during do that what do they do you want them checking in or giving a bit of space discuss it what does that look like before during an afternoon absolutely i think i think one thing not not to um i think not to kind of take away from that sometimes there might be a level of anxiety that actually gosh i probably won't be able to to teach what what that tutor is is teaching my my child or you know my foster child for example but but actually we're not we're not saying here to you know to replicate um what what it is that they're doing but it's just that interest you know is it that care what are you learning what's going on um and that interest alone really will spark we've certainly seen spot that conversation in that student and then that child that gosh okay let me tell you about this again building their confidence um and really then i guess just checking in in after the session with with the tutor how is it going you know is there anything that that i can further do or anything i should be aware of i think it's these continuous conversations that really aid that learning and i think you just mentioned it that there might occasionally be some you know anxiety amongst the parents or carers you know especially if you're looking at gcse level maths like some some circle theorem or whatever they might puff their cheeks out i mean you tell us a little bit more about like how can a parent how do you think it's useful for them to take an interest even if they don't necessarily know what kinds of questions might be helpful for them to ask i'm sure there'll be some parents watching here who's just generally useful advice for them yeah absolutely i think i think it's just so important to know what what it is that they're doing um you know and i guess key dates are there any key dates or any kind of examinations um coming up and you know and where where do they feel that there are some gaps you know and actually then looking and exploring further resources we we list a whole list of resources on our website to to aid both tutors but also parents and carers too um the internet is a wash with so many resources and sometimes it's a bit of a minefield trying to navigate you know what's relevant but i think just having those conversations and and those that those conversations will then need you to think actually perhaps i should be in contact with school you know is this something further here that we can do which may then lead that parent or carer to then think perhaps my child could do with a bit more intervention perhaps i go back to the school and racist so as we can see we've got this kind of continuum of conversation interesting um it's going to move on some of the other questions thanks everybody for adding them please keep them coming in and back to that question astrid um questioning from tam um just asking kim what's your perspective on the successes and challenges of the national tutoring program so far um some people may have been aware in the news there's been occasional coverage that the recent delivery hasn't got the numbers in that they wanted and yet you've also mentioned evidence beforehand saying this is one of the best evidence approaches we've got what's your overall take on on how it's going i think first and foremost it's um it's really important to um really celebrate the fact um that here we have a government that recognize there needs to be a catch-up program i think that was absolutely fantastic that that has been put in place um to do anything on this scale is going to be a challenge um and therefore perhaps not reaching as many students as it should have and i think that's been perhaps one of the biggest challenges but to even embark on on something so big it's inevitable that there would be such challenges where where children have been able to access this it's been absolutely fantastic um and and we've certainly seen the impact that that's been having and the confidence and and the learning and even getting integrating some students back into back into school as i mentioned around the anxiety um but there are there are there are further challenges there are we we perhaps are not reaching all the children that we we should be um and that that for us is a concern do you have any thoughts about uh i appreciate you got enough in your plate it's not your problem to solve technically but you know what kinds of things do you think might help the ntp reach more children um there needs to be something about further further communication and really marketing marketing speaking to schools and having these conversations um and just to generally get more uptake um i think we need to be mindful that schools are so under pressure with everything else that they're doing and educating children that how do we also then not add more administrative burden on them you know what can we do to take that away and we wouldn't want that to be a barrier um so i think i think those are the things that would probably be a concern for for us on our side and something that we've certainly seen thanks um yeah it's interesting to see how that unfolds i mean there's a really good question here uh from madison thanks for watching your question and you talked about it's difficult to run this sort of thing at scale um what i guess two questions here from anastasia one is you know like how what are the challenges of scaling like what's the main thing that you start to it sounds like you know your tutors really well and maybe you know each child that they're working with as well what are the challenges of taking that to scale and what kind of context do you think the approach might be less suited for

thank you that's a great question um for me it's about actually the community the community of tutors and how do we not then lose that culture i think that's that's really imperative um as as we begin to scale and and start to look at our cohorts um of children and i i and just you know we need to stay personal i bring this back down to culture which i think is so so important um and the fact that we kind of know we know our students you know we know those names and i think i think those will probably be some of the challenges but how do we then still keep a very strong yeah a very strong community which i think is important and it goes back into those strategic partnerships that i mentioned um really and how those tie in together i hope that's a question you're asking around scaling scaling the actual social enterprise as opposed to the um the national tutoring program raj i haven't answered that i think we've so i think there's a theme that addresses both and i think this is part of it a lot of initiatives can start with a certain zeal and i'm sure you would have worked with schools where you'll see even an individual teacher runs you know a rock climbing club or something and they manage to create an immense sense of community and their passion everything comes across and every time you add a layer to it take it one step further you lose a little bit of that person's passion for it don't you and it's women's best intentions it just becomes a little bit less personal so i think i think your answer uh addresses both quite neatly um we might come back to some of the ntp later but i wanted like we've got another question coming from sally thanks for your question and it is interesting here you know we had a very specific response to the pandemic which was uh dfe you know putting money behind something very specific that's evidence-based and whilst that was appreciated many schools might have said actually we've really got needs elsewhere that we could have used that budget for you know what are your thoughts about schools using the budget for ntp and so on on you know more past pastorally focused intervention rather than academics i i'm fully in support of that absolutely because that whatever that intervention may be pastorally will definitely impact on the students learning and i absolutely think that would be a fantastic thing to do if it benefits that student it's going to benefit benefit them holistically um which will the thus have impact on their education so i um i absolutely think that that would be a very good move quite frankly um yeah thanks so much for that question sally um next question from javier sanskoro uh i hope i pronounced that correctly however apologies for that i'll sign you wrong and javier says more attention to the power of play is needed and highlight some research showing it can take you know many more repetitions to practice up to a new um to building new sign-ups using practice that it would be replay and when you talk to your tutors who are qualified teachers you know do you talk to them about maybe broadening their practice from maybe not being so specifically pedagogical to broadening into into other approaches how do you do that with them and especially taking advantage of the one-to-one or once a small group situation they're working in

is very powerful um and actually there's a lot of learning that happens through play um i just want to mention that you know we've had some reservations from some local authority leaders about actually rolling out um ipads for example because there is this um philosophy that oh gosh children are just going to play games well actually that's fantastic and children should be playing games because actually that's how learning happens so the beauty of the one to one is that level of creativity that can take place you know all the way through from early years even through to secondary um and our teachers are able to do that it's a big advocate of the play um but also tailoring it you know and also helping that child be confident enough not having to sit with direct eye contact perhaps sometimes with the cheetah but actually learning through play then comes that organic conversation do you i mean donald treats so much on the spot have you got any examples of how those approaches have been used perhaps in a one-to-one tuition example which is you can imagine being trickier in the classroom i can certainly imagine if you've got one child you're working with you can take you know a couple more risks with the style of learning than you could with 30 where you know if that goes wrong you've got a problem with your hands

actually what comes to mind is one of our tutors um using um maths um teaching maths with robots um through kind of resilience from maths and then really engaging that learner um so as you can imagine you know increasing confidence and boost attainment as well but such a fantastic way to learn yeah i mean you've got me at robots for sure i'd love to know and just those of you watching if you've got any other questions or anything else that hasn't been addressed please just drop it in the chat i've got a couple of questions for you kim actually whilst we're talking here i mean in a in a perfect world i guess what i mean what what do you think what kind of policy support would be in place what you're doing the ntp is very much a response to the pandemic who knows what the long-term plans are do you think this is part of the long-term solution or long-term response to addressing the attainment gap would you like to see it stay in place and as well as that what other kinds of policy solutions would you be think would be necessary to make the kind of progress we all want to see right i think this needs to the ntp will need to run in parallel just because of the the learning loss that that has occurred so i think that definitely still needs to continue in terms of that intervention and that one-to-one or or as some other models are one to three um but but i think it does need to be quite reform actually and look at looking at some of this education and how and how this is being this is being delivered and and are we really taking into account some of the needs and i obviously speak about the the the children that we have we serve and thinking about their challenges um and just the pressures in terms of you know these specialist school places that are needed and obviously sometimes a very long wait times and all the learning that's lost aside that so it really needs to be quite reform in terms of the schools that are available how are we really tailoring it to that child's need and making sure education is accessible um but so but the one to one does need to continue just because of the learning loss right okay um just scanning to see if any more coming in so i think we're sort of winding up now i think the audience questions have sort of all been answered quite satisfactorily i was going to ask you just have you got any closing remarks for us what do you want us to really take away maybe there was other little nuggets that you wanted to share with us you haven't what's the lasting narrative you'd like everybody here who's joined us today to take away with them um i think really you know i think one one thing to really consider is is it around kind of social mobility and how we really support support students and support vulnerable students um and and how actually by lifting by lifting everybody in society and how much this benefits society as a whole and i think this is really important but obviously these things can't be done in the silo and i think it's just really important for it to be on ever on the forefront of everyone's mind yeah you're here for that uh just one more that's coming from george thank you question george says during the government the excuse me during the pandemic the government referred to a large covert children's lost generation uh a negative narrative for both child and parent carer i mean what type of strategies and approaches do you think could be used to rise above this perception

yeah yeah and and actually it doesn't help to have that kind of negative talk about students by by any means i think what's really really important is that the fact that these children needs are being addressed and not just from an educational perspective but as i mentioned around kind of mental health um you know which would be further further further exacerbated um and but also their kind of access access to play you know are they around their peers see children learn off their peers and this is really important um and so and actually and how our families being supported in in order to do that um when we're talking about education here but i do really think that there needs to be more done in terms of kind of supporting families in the community as well so so that actually there's i thought it's important for parents and carers to have that sense of community actually you're not alone and i think that and i think that makes a huge difference um but again yeah george i agree with you that actually it's definitely not a lost generation by any means and actually i'd argue perhaps a more resilient one and one to to look for look at in in future years and think my goodness and kind of to get through these adversities is quite remarkable yeah 100 i was really going to have that last point that some of the children i was teaching had months of not knowing if their gcses or their a-levels were going to happen how their university was going to work and you think how stressful the time that is anyway and you add this additional layer on top i think in a few years time one would hope many are actually boasting about it that they were part of that cohort rather than necessarily yeah right um another quick question from gracia we definitely got time thanks for the question um how important do you think social and emotional learning is to help reduce the attainment gap and this relates to the last question really we were talking about resilience which we i think we can fold into social emotional learning um you know what's the role there and how do your tutors address that i think it's absolutely crucial um and that's a wonderful question thank you um and actually just how much it links into um you know we're just measuring we don't just want to look at kind of attainment you know it's more than that do you have social skills you know and and and are you able to you know converse with people and are you do you feel confident enough so i think it plays a huge factor you know a lot of our tutors are they're building that self-esteem with students you know and and and thus developing their resilience as well so i think it's i think it plays a huge part in it um and actually therefore once once that's really developing with students i feel actually then they're really able to access um education and i think that's really important but it's got it's got to work together it can't just be actually let's just merely focus on the educational outcomes for the children and not take this into account do you think that sometimes i mean this relates to actually a question we had earlier about particularly the ncp being too addressed at academic needs do you think there's some element of that about the pandemic response generally in schools that actually has targeted almost exclusively academics and perhaps not enough on the other side of things yeah i think and raj what we see is we see both ends of the spectrum so you know children that are yes they might be in care they're really thriving doing really well um in terms of their educational outcomes um we're working at level sevens to other end of that spectrum for students that have been so crippled socially emotionally and they're just not able to access the learning that's not to say they couldn't go on to achieve these level sevens um and actually that it would be wise and i think it's something that our tutors really do is actually look to really look at that pastoral care i mean for example we work with children in care you know i don't know if that child sometimes is so disrupted in their learning on a monday because they had contact with a biological parent on the weekend you know it was probably in the in the court order it's what's been advised and how much that emotionally impacts their learning so i think it's it it's really important to be having those conversations and i know our tutors certainly do check in again again this comes back to how are we speaking to parents and carers and involving them you know are we speaking to the school are the schools not being kept in the dark are they aware of what's happened yeah absolutely um yeah i think some of those situations are extraordinarily powerful and you never quite know what's going on a child's background if you're working in a school sometimes and when you're here it can really take the wind out of you and really good question here from george actually which i think is a nice one to conclude if nothing else comes in george has asked you know does your organization offer volunteering particularly for parents wanting to offer their skills and experience i guess if you don't mind children i'll just broaden that question a little bit you mentioned that normally tutors have qualified teacher status but i'm sure a lot of people here want to get involved what are the general volunteering opportunities for parents and for other people to help in organizations such as yourselves um we would be absolutely open to having conversations but by all means and i and and this really feeds into kind of the whole society piece and and um you know what can society do as a whole as well as the community um community peace and strategic alliances and actually george at the moment we don't offer that but i've been more than welcome to um open sorry open to having conversations um as i say that there are other leaders um and charities are are in this space and and perhaps those introductions could be made and those conversations could be had obviously we use qualified teachers just because of the nature of the children that we serve that's not to say that there aren't ways that other people could get involved by all means thanks very much kim um right

i just want to just close things up here uh kim really thank you for spending your time with us today it's been fantastic hearing the work equal education does and actually talking about some of the bigger issues that are behind it and so it's been an absolute pleasure thank you thank you for having me no thank you okay so um everybody else who's uh still uh on the stream um we would love you please just to fill in a short survey just to give us some feedback about these events and the link's going to be shared in the chat and it's also going to be available in the events description um and as a thank you for filling out the server the survey you can enter a prize draw to win a 50 pounds bookshop voucher which i'm sure would be more than welcome alone more than welcomed by everybody

and just before i sign off uh the nest the next nesta talks to event not easy to say as with professor graham donaldson he's gonna be in conversation with uh affair starts head in wales who runs our work funnily enough in wales uh on thursday 19th of may at 12 p.m details can be found on nestle's website thanks very much for joining us everybody today and look forward to seeing you next time