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 with a tutor.

In the academic year 2022/23 schools will receive ring-fenced funding for the provision of high quality tuition. Schools will have the flexibility to spend their tutoring funding how they wish to ensure the pupils they feel require tuition receive it.

Schools can deliver tuition in three ways:

• Using an approved Tuition Partner – schools can access high-quality tutoring from an approved list of tutoring partners, who have met the Tutoring Partner Quality Standards and Accreditation Criteria. Pupils can receive multiple packages of tutoring through a Tuition Partner over an academic year.
• Using existing school staff or others who are familiar with their school
• Using an academic mentor – schools can employ trained graduates to deliver subject specific tuition

Yes, absolutely. The system is based on a Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) approach to teaching literacy and it sits comfortably alongside and complements all the widely used SSP teaching programmes (Read Write Inc., Letter & Sounds, Jolly Phonics, etc.)

For the National Tutoring Programme, schools will need to book between 20 and 60 pupils. If an FFT tutor is placed in your school they will work full-time as part of your school’s staff team for around six weeks.

The tutor will work with the 20 to 60 pupils, delivering 10 tutoring sessions each day in groups of 2 to 6 pupils at a time (30 minutes per session).

As part of the National Tutoring Programme a total of 15 hours of tuition is available to pupils.

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.

FFT is partnered with Operam Education who are responsible for recruiting the tutor in your school. Our tutors will be Qualified Teachers with experience of working with primary school pupils. Operam interview all candidates, ensure DBS and Safeguarding documents are up to date and completed well before the placement commences. Operam will provide copies of these relevant documents for your own records and will handle all matters relating to tutor recruitment, tutor illness and tutor absence etc.

Once you have finalised your order with FFT, Operam will be in touch regarding the recruitment of your tutor. You are welcome to nominate a tutor to Operam for your placement – a supply teacher or Teaching Assistant who is familiar with the school or someone you know who you feel would suit the role. Do let us or Operam know if someone comes to mind and we will put them in touch in order to get them up and running as your tutor.

Research has demonstrated that pupils make learning gains of between 3 and 5 months in reading attainment when using TWL. This was demonstrated in the last academic year when we delivered to 25,000 pupils as part of the National Tutoring Programme. There has also been independent research carried out in both the USA and the UK which supports this increase in learning gains for pupils accessing the Tutoring with the Lightning Squad programme.

The majority of pupils will make significant improvement in their reading in the six weeks the tutor is with them in school. Some pupils may benefit from additional learning so as part of your National Tutoring Programme package we will give you free access to the programme for a further 10 weeks so you can deliver the rest of the sessions yourself. We will train members of your staff to take over the tutoring and continue the tutor’s work once they have completed the placement.

As part of the National Tutoring Programme pupils are able to access multiple blocks of tuition in the same subject so if you wanted the same pupils to access another block of tuition we’d encourage you to book an additional order so your tutor can stay with you in school to continue the tutoring.

If you have resource within the school to deliver the tutoring we do also give you free access to the programme for a further 10 weeks after the initial six weeks of delivery with the tutor. We will train members of your staff to take over the tutoring and continue the tutor’s work once they have completed the placement.

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.

You can log into FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad from any device – Chromebooks, laptops or PCs. Sound is important, so use speakers or devices with good volume to ensure the pupils can hear the audio.

Due to the interactive nature of the programme and with pupils working closely together we’d advise avoiding iPads and tablets as the screen size tends to be a bit small and the volume too quiet.