I was first introduced to Student H in 2022, when he arrived in the UK as a UASC (unaccompanied asylum-seeking child) student. He was placed in a foster home and Year 10 in a school, but with a traumatic background, little previous education and virtually no English, he was not in a position to join mainstream lessons.

Determined to do their best for him, the school was keen to accelerate H’s acquisition of English, and spoke to the Customer Partnership team at Tute to help develop a cost-effective, specialised programme, which would enhance the face to face EAL teaching which could be provided in the school.

H was initially enrolled onto a shared Everyday English programme (5 lessons per week for 8 weeks) to teach him simple everyday language, with a focus on speaking and understanding, especially much-needed language to help him to understand and assimilate into school life.

At that time, he could not tell me much about himself, but gradually I did learn a few things, for example he hated pasta, loved cake and roast chicken and was mad about cricket!

At the end of that programme, we agreed that H should move onto a Virtual School Pre-entry ESOL programme of 4 shared lessons per week, with an additional 1:1 lesson once per week, to focus on areas of English which he needed to develop.

To ensure that his Tute and school lessons dovetailed, we provided all the phonics and vocabulary sets for the Pre-Entry programme to the school, so the local EAL teacher could develop her own scheme of learning alongside Tute’s.

By September 2022, now in Year 11, H was ready to move to Entry 1 Virtual school, in addition to his 1:1 Tute lesson and attending mainstream, core curriculum lessons in his own school.

He completed his education in July 2023, and proudly explained to me that he would not be going to ESOL college, because he had managed to secure a place at a cricket academy.

From scared, isolated child, to cricket star of the future, Tute ESOL works in partnership with schools to transform lives.