The difference you make is real

Hina Shah is the headteacher at Earlsmead Primary School in Tottenham, North London, one of the schools Innovations For Learning/TutorMate partners with in the capital. Hina has taught in schools in London for over 25 years and has been a headteacher for four of them.?

We invited Hina to give us a perspective of what it's been like on the teaching frontline through the pandemic and the kinds of support that she thinks disadvantaged children could really benefit from.

As a headteacher, I'm used to sifting through difficult things and presenting them in a palatable way to different audiences, be it staff, parents, or children. But when the first lockdown of the pandemic was announced, for the first time when speaking to my staff my voice did shake because I was unable to disguise the magnitude of what was happening to the school community.

When, as a school, you're the hub for so many families in need, the early days of the lockdown felt like a trauma. In South Tottenham poverty is real for many of the children at our school and families were losing their already inadequate housing because they were losing their jobs. The gig economy was hit hard and quickly. Referrals around domestic violence within families spiked.

Schools were getting messages from the government at the eleventh hour - at the same time as the public - so we were having to deal with our own shock at the same time as mobilising ourselves. We actually managed to organise food and vouchers for our families most in need before the government was able to do so because we saw first hand how immediate those needs were for the community.

In the weeks that followed, we organised school for the key workers and for the most vulnerable children. We skilled ourselves up very quickly on remote learning for the rest of the children, making sure that they have the devices they needed, including data.?

We then prepared magnificently for reopening, thoroughly thinking through a recovery curriculum. But while we braced ourselves in relation to the wellbeing agenda and what we might encounter from the children, in actual fact the children were very resilient and attendance was at 96 percent. Any losses were related not so much to their appetite for learning, but more to how they coped with the routines and the rhythms of school life and reestablishing friendships and relationships with the adults. There was an erosion of belief in themselves as keen and capable learners, and addressing these issues was the priority because we knew the rest would follow.

I cannot allow my staff or parents or children to buy into the narrative of ‘Covid learning loss’. When we are able to teach the children, they will learn and they do. This means that some things will take longer for children, but it's up to us as a society to support them and give them confidence in their capabilities.?

We have always known that the more you read, the better you'll read and the better you read the better you become.

This is where literacy support initiatives like Innovations For Learning’s TutorMate programme are invaluable. We have always known that the more you read, the better you'll read and the better you read the better you become. The challenge has always been how to meet that need with all the other demands and finite resources.

At Earlsmead Primary, TutorMate volunteers support ten children in each of our Year 1 classes who have been identified as needing some further support with their reading. These are children who you just know as a teacher that if they read more, they'd be better but sadly circumstances at home means they are denied vital reading practice. The children read one-to-one remotely with their TutorMate volunteer once a week. As well as reading levelled stories together, they play fun word games, and they have really lovely, chatty relationships with their volunteers.

Year 1 is the perfect year group to start with because you can't let gaps in reading skills widen. The quicker you close them, the better for children. There’s empirical evidence that really supports the brilliant work that TutorMate is doing. Over the academic year 2020-2021, and through the lockdowns, the children received 110 hours of reading support via TutorMate. All the children made very significant progress, and the children who took up the home-based tutoring that was introduced during the lockdowns made even more progress - moving up three or four levels in many cases.?

Not only have teachers reported that enthusiasm for reading has very much increased but there have been some unexpected boons. A little girl who doesn't usually talk to the adults in the school was overheard having a lovely conversation online with her TutorMate volunteer. It’s not just the technicalities of decoding and phonics that our children need: it is the consistency and the reliability of the volunteers and the connectivity that they experience with them that encourages them.

As well as fulfilling a civic duty, which always feels good to the soul, experiencing the tangible difference that you make as a TutorMate tutor is a powerful feeling. And following the pandemic initiatives such as TutorMate are now more than ever invaluable for schools.

I urge businesses to support their staff to volunteer for TutorMate. The difference the volunteers make is real, it is almost immediate

I urge businesses to support their staff to volunteer for TutorMate. The difference the volunteers make is real, it is almost immediate, especially with Year 1, and it is transformative to a child's educational experience and, ultimately -? and I don't say this with any exaggeration - to their life chances.

?If you’d like to find out more about the TutorMate programme, please be in touch with Innovations For Learning’s business development manager Sarah Taylor at [email protected].?