With a new academic year starting, one Stevenage school has been working with an online tutoring service to help pupils get back into the swing of things after lockdown.

The Nobel School, in Mobbsbury Way, has praised the impact of the online tutoring service MyTutor, which has provided extra learning for their Year 10 pupils.

The school’s tuition programme focused specifically on Science and was offered to 10 selected pupil premium students who had the biggest gap between their target and predicted grade.

The aim of the programme was to ensure that students had the support necessary to close the gap between their target and predicted grades, and to encourage students to re-engage with the material after a long stretch at home.

After settling in, most students said that they found it a really beneficial top-up to their Science lessons in school, because the individualised approach meant they had undivided attention for two hours.

The students also unanimously said that if the programme were to be offered throughout Year 11, they would be keen to continue.

Charlie, a pupil at Nobel, said: “We come in every Tuesday for two-and-a-half hours, and we get private one-to-one lessons.

“It’s really personalised, the tutor asks you what you’re struggling with, and what you’d like more recap over, so it’s really personalised to what you need to do.

“In a classroom, you’re learning as a group - so it’s almost better. It’s really good and definitely a better way of learning.”

Paul Willsher, head of Year 10 at Nobel School, said: “Every time I phoned MyTutor, every time I emailed, there was a response almost immediately and they were really clear.

“The teacher portal is really easy to navigate and use, in terms of being able to look at the students and register students and see what’s going on.

“I think a lot of our students have gone back with renewed confidence into their Science lessons, they felt that they understood a lot of the topics better than they did before they started the tutoring.”

The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) recently released data indicating that the learning gap between disadvantaged students and their better-off peers has widened by 46 per cent since schools closed earlier this year.