FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad
The leading primary literacy tutoring programme
Also includes
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A tutoring programme which improves reading skills for pupils in Years 1 to 6
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See it in action
Find out more at one of our live online events
Want to find out more about FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad? Join us at one of our school workshop events.
About FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad
FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad is a reading tutoring programme where pupils work in small groups with a tutor to improve their reading skills. The tutoring is a blended approach with face-to-face tutoring supported by an online tutoring platform. The tutoring activities are designed and structured to improve reading skills, fluency, comprehension, spelling and phonics. Pupils work through 65 specially written, engaging and illustrated stories.
Pupils will work with a tutor for six weeks to catch-up their reading skills, with daily 30-minute tutoring sessions in school. Research has demonstrated that pupils using Tutoring with the Lightning Squad make learning gains of between 3 and 5 months in reading attainment.
Assessment and feedback
All pupils take a short online reading assessment at the start of the tutoring programme to help the tutor and class teacher decide which groups of pupils should work together and at what point in the programme they should start.
Regular tutor checks are built into the tutoring programme. Pupils complete a set of reading activities with their tutor related to what they have been learning. The tutor will then decide whether pupils are ready to move on to the next story in the tutoring programme.

Tracking and reporting
We provide online reports for tutors, teachers and school leaders which monitor pupils’ progress and reading attainment.
The reports include the new words learnt, reading age, reading fluency and a measure of reading progress.
FFT’s tutoring reports will help schools to monitor the impact of the tutoring on pupils’ reading skills and development.


Approved Tuition Partner
FFT is one of the largest tutoring providers, working with over 1000 primary schools and delivering tuition to over 60,000 pupils.
Schools can use their school tutoring funding to access FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad with an FFT tutor, in school tutor or an academic mentor. To find out more about how you can use your school tutoring funding join one of our upcoming webinars.
Who can deliver the tutoring?
FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad can be delivered using an FFT tutor or your existing school staff, including an academic mentor.
If you would like to use an FFT tutor, FFT will recruit the tutor for your school. Our tutors will be qualified teachers with experience of working with primary school pupils.
We will find the right tutor for your school with the tutor recruitment process including full background and employment checks, interviews, references and DBS clearance.
FFT’s tutor will work full-time as part of your school’s staff team for six weeks. The tutor will work with 20 to 60 pupils, delivering 10 tutoring sessions each day in groups of 2 to 6 pupils at a time (30 minutes per session).
From
£25 per pupil
using your school’s DfE tutoring funding and an in-school tutor
15 hours’ tutoring
over 6 weeks with daily 30-minute tutoring sessions
From
£125 per pupil
with an FFT tutor to deliver the tutoring in your school
How much does the tutoring cost?
Schools access FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad as an annual subscription service with the tutoring costing from £25 per pupil for the school.
Schools can use their tutoring funding to purchase the platform and deliver tutoring with their own in-school tutors or academic mentor. As part of the subscription service schools get a copy of printed resources which includes a set of stories as well as online training and support.
We can also provide an FFT tutor to deliver the tutoring in your school. The FFT tutor will deliver 15 hours of tutoring for each pupil through daily 30-minute tutoring sessions over six weeks. This costs from £125 per pupil for the school for tutoring which will be delivered in small groups for between 20 and 60 pupils over the six weeks.
Once you have decided how many pupils you would like to register for the tutoring, we will discuss with you how the pupils will be grouped.
Annual subscription for FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad
Size of school | Price |
---|---|
Half form entry | £500 |
1 form entry | £900 |
2 form entry | £1,400 |
3 form entry | £1,800 |
FFT Tutor for six weeks to deliver tutoring to 20 to 60 pupils | £7,500 |
FAQs
We've answered some common questions about FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad. If your question is not answered, please get in touch.

Start using Tutoring with the Lightning Squad today
Please register your school's interest here to find out more or get started
Alternatively you can phone us on 01446 776262 to talk about how the tutoring could work for your school.
Interested in joining as a tutor?
Please register your interest with our recruitment partner, Operam Education Group.
Our partners

Success for All (UK) joined with FFT in September 2021. FFT is a non-profit organisation with 20 years’ experience in supporting schools with literacy and improving educational outcomes. We believe that success in life is built on a solid foundation of learning. A first critical step is to learn how to read. From our research we know that children who cannot read at the expected standard by the end of Year 2 have a much lower chance of achieving a Grade 4 or above in GCSE English. Our mission is to give all children a solid, full start to literacy and learning to read.
Our Success for All programmes provide schools with evidence-based literacy programmes which are fully aligned to the National Curriculum and help schools to teach English from Reception to the end of Key Stage 3. Our literacy programmes have been proven to be effective in a wide range of schools, including those schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged children.

Operam is an agglomeration of four highly respected teacher and school workforce recruitment organisations (Provide Education, The Education Specialists, Teachers UK and Key Stage Teacher Supply). They have 20 years’ experience of understanding what schools need and how best to support them, providing around 150,000 teaching days to schools each year.