New Partnership Announcement! Explore Learning’s Big Dream Programme

We are very happy to announce a new partnership with Explore Learning working together to provide tuition for vulnerable children within our Chances for Children grants.

Explore Learning has launched the Big Dream Programme with the ambition to support 500 children through part or fully subsidised memberships in the next 2 years. When they reached out to discuss ways we could create a tuition offer for children and young people whose education had been impacted by crisis and poverty, we were very interested.

“Since we launched our tuition business in 2001, we’ve set out to support as many children as possible with their education. Not only have we helped hundreds of thousands of young people to achieve their learning goals, we have coached them to develop a life-long love of learning. We want all children to dream bigger, have their individual needs met and discover the joy of learning. Our Big Dream Programme is about offering even more access for disadvantaged children to experience the benefits of Explore Learning tuition.” Bill Mills, CEO and Founder, Explore Learning.  

At the heart of this partnership is sharing the cost of tuition provision 50/50 with Explore Learning. The cost-of-living crisis has put a lot of pressure on our grant giving. We’ve seen unprecedented demand for our grants, but we’ve also seen increased need within the home. This has been combined with increased cost on individual items and activities. So, it has been a particularly good time to explore new ways to be able to make our funding go further.

From Luke Mitchell, Grant Development Officer

As a grants officer at Buttle UK, we are used to hearing stories of how children have fallen behind in their education due to a recent crisis; perhaps the child has been struggling to concentrate following the death of a parent, or a child has had to move out of area with their family to flee domestic abuse. We also know the impact lost days at school can have on a child’s grades and their future prospects. Without decent GCSEs the child will have limited future opportunities in further education or employment. Tuition is a brilliant way of catching kids up with their grades. This is why, as a charity focussed on supporting the life chances of children and young people, we are keen to help fund tuition costs when the money can’t be found from elsewhere.

But it can be challenging to find a suitable tutor – one that can meet the needs of the children we help. The families we support would often struggle to access tutoring due to the upheaval they might still be experiencing. The tutor might also require payment for their services using a method which we are not able to accommodate. But this is where our arrangement with Explore Learning will be so valuable.

With Explore Learning we were able to take a holistic look at how we could create an easy and cost-effective solution. They helped us to design a referral system that works for us, support workers and families, which smoothed out a lot of the registration concerns and utilised our standard payment method.

The arrangement means that we can quickly offer a flexible, hassle-free opportunity to many of the children who would benefit most from tuition. The Explore Learning tuition centres will be a great option for young people who learn best face-to-face and will also provide an opportunity to learn within a supportive classroom environment. There’s also the chance for children to socialise with others their own age, something that many of the children we support have had to go without. And the online tuition option will be perfect for those who would like to learn from home but can’t attend a tuition centre due to their personal needs or family circumstances.

The Explore Learning partnership also provides additional monitoring and evaluation on the impact of tuition within our grant giving, providing a valuable learning opportunity.  This will allow us to understand attendance and other struggles families might face and learn more about the impact of online vs in person support. Ultimately, this will help us gain more insight about how tuition can deliver the biggest impact for children.

“Explore Learning represents a really exciting partnership model, one where the private sector can help by reducing their prices for vulnerable children, young people and their families, whilst Buttle UK uses its expertise and systems to ensure that this offer is reaching those that can benefit from it most. Together we can help to level the playing field. We are very much looking forward to working with Explore Learning.”

• Joseph Howes, CEO Buttle UK

The support from Explore Learning can only be accessed as part of a Chances for Children Grant. Read more about eligibility and how the grants work here.