D6 Peer Tuition Launches at Hathershaw College
Saturday 28th September marked the launch of our D6 peer tuition at The Hathershaw College. D6 stands for ‘Day 6’ and is a peer tutoring initiative taking place on a Saturday morning aimed at providing an additional layer of support and intervention for our year 11 students as they prepare to complete their GCSE exams.
D6 tuition is delivered by 15 year 12 students, all recently successful Hathershaw alumni currently studying at Oldham Sixth Form College (OSFC), also part of our trust, The Pinnacle Learning Trust. Having got the first few sessions off the ground, we are seeing up to 50 students arrive each Saturday morning, approaching a quarter of our year 11 cohort.
Hathershaw students receive personalised tuition from students not much older than themselves and with recent relevant experience of exams. They can focus on the areas of a particular subject they may find challenging and the sessions cover a variety of subject areas, including GCSE English, maths, science, history, geography and French.
Sessions also focus on effective revision strategies with the added benefit that the peer tutors only recently used these techniques to positive effect themselves. Peer tutors are trained at OSFC in conjunction with Lewis Entwistle, Assistant Principal and are completing a programme designed by Yipiyap which covers a range of topics such as leadership, communication, emotional intelligence, teamwork, teaching and learning and safeguarding.
Our approach is flexible, enabling students to attend a variety of sessions whilst not needing to commit to attending them all. They are very much student-led and we encourage our year 11 students to be responsible for their learning and to attend as and when they would benefit. They are not compulsory. Students attend in their own clothes and refreshments are provided ensuring a more relaxed and grown-up learning environment similar to that experienced at college.
Mark Giles, Hathershaw’s Principal said “I really welcome this partnership within our trust. It shows how a good locally-focused trust can quickly establish provision which benefits the most important people in our organisation, the students. It is also a great experience for our former students, strengthening further their university applications, but also providing them with an income whilst they study as all are paid the relevant national minimum wage. I am really grateful to my Vice Principal, Ashley Travis, who has led this initiative. I am also grateful to senior leaders and support staff who are going the extra mile providing adult supervision on Saturday mornings, all after a busy week at work.”
Jayne Clarke, Pinnacle’s CEO said “It’s fantastic to see how successful this initiative is, bringing benefits for students at both Hathershaw and OSFC. This is a great example of the benefits of working in partnership across our trust, and it’s particularly beneficial to have support across the different phases of education, with secondary and sixth form students working together. The colleagues and students involved from both Hathershaw and OSFC have worked hard to create a really strong and supportive offer’.
