How Nestas Click Connect Learn fund helped the Foundation successfully pilot Tutorfair On-Demand

How Nesta's Click Connect Learn fund helped the Foundation successfully pilot Tutorfair On-Demand The Tutorfair Foundation has been working with Nesta since September 2017, when we were selected for a grant as part of their 'Click Connect Learn’ fund. The fund was set up in collaboration with The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to support innovations that use digital technology to enable volunteers to tutor disadvantaged pupils. Nesta’s support enabled us to build and pilot Tutorfair On-Demand  â€" a completely free to use text-and-image-based instant messaging platform that connects students with volunteer tutors instantly through their devices. Now, the platform is connecting us with schools in the North-West and West Midlands as well as giving us a far greater reach across London and the South-East. Our volunteers also have a much more flexible way to get involved with Foundation activities if they have busy schedules or aren’t living in London. With the final report from Click Connect Learn due to be published at the end of October, we received the following testimonial from Jed Cinnamon, the Programme Manager in the Education Team at Nesta who has worked with us right through the grant cycle to help deliver the project: ‘We backed Tutorfair On-Demand through the Click Connect Learn fund,’ says Jed, ‘because Nesta are excited about the potential to raise educational attainment for students who can be hard to reach with face-to-face volunteering.’ '[The Foundation’s] aim is to reduce inequality in education by providing eligible students with free tuition in GCSE Maths through instant messaging to their own devices. The pilot began with 4 schools at the start of the 2017/18 academic year, but the platform has since grown to support 34 schools.’ ‘Tutorfair achieved all the important objectives of the project, including the technical build to plan, on budget, and on time.   They were able to work around some major challenges, including a proposed partner going out of business and a key person finding a new opportunity during the project.’ ‘The Tutorfair On-Demand app is accessible to students when they want and need help, which makes the platform unique. The flexibility of volunteering on the platform is appealing to volunteers; and there is huge potential that the app will be able to prove its impact on attainment once it reaches large enough scale.’ ‘During the project, Tutorfair produced clear, detailed and punctual reports. They focused on understanding, in detail, what was working and what was not working on the platform using qualitative and quantitative data and collecting valuable feedback from tutors, students and teachers.’ ‘The Tutorfair team are professional, collaborative and cooperative, and they participated fully in sharing learnings with other grantees and projects at our events. Nesta are happy to recommend Tutorfair Foundation as a grantee to develop and manage worthwhile educational technology and tuition initiatives.’ Tutorfair On-Demand will be reopened for 2019-20 academic year in early November. If you’re a leader at a school where the student population is greater than 50% Pupil Premium eligible, you can register your interest here. If you’re interested in volunteering on the platform, let us know here  and if you’d like to help us with our fundraising, contact the team at foundation@tutorfair.com to get involved. To find out more about  our successful pilot, visit here: https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/Click-Connect-Learn-report-November-2019.pdf