TutorTap plays a support role for teachers in schools across the UK, extending their capacity with targeted one-to-one student support from our online network of inspiring educators. We create virtual schools, staffed across the UK, with data driven diagnostic tools, cutting edge online classroom technology, progress reporting and analytics to class teachers, as well as intelligent, flexible timetabling.
TutorTap provide one-to-one intervention programmes for students, who have live lessons with their tutor in an online classroom, which they connect to from their school computer rooms. When setting up a new programme TutorTap help to assess results, determining which students require support. The schools then pass on each student’s available time and desired subject. TutorTap match each student with a tutor based on their backgrounds and academic interests, which helps to build rapport with students and avoid any communication barriers.
There is a gap in the market for external support for schools to looking to improve their results in an effective and affordable way.
Academy schools in the UK are relatively well-funded and looking for innovative new ways to improve their performance. The most important metric for them is exam performance, particularly the number of pupils attaining 5 or more A* to C grades at GCSE (grades ‘1’ to ‘5’ under the new system from 2017).
Research from the Education Endowment Fund suggests that one-to-one tutoring is one of the most effective ways to improve pupils’ academic performance, suggesting that the impact could be equivalent to up to five months’ additional progress.
TutorTap charges schools per hour of tuition provided, and makes a 40% margin equivalent to £8 per hour. Students are typically signed up for 12 hours of tutoring per term, so the annual margin per student is £288. Schools usually start with small trials of around 10-20 pupils in the first term and roll out full programmes after a few weeks of positive results and feedback, so the programmes can have up to around 100 pupils. The annual margin per school would be £7k to £15k on average, including the smaller school contracts.
TutorTap expects to exit through a trade sale due to significant revenue synergies for companies involved in, or looking to enter, the UK schools market.
The company expects its school relationships to become its most valuable asset as it grows into more UK secondary schools. The company expects these to be particularly valuable relationships because of the centrality of the product to the core focus of schools on raising academic attainment. Moreover, the programmes involve close cooperation with multiple teachers and senior managers at the client schools.