2024
A Year In Review
We analysed over 84,827 hours of online tutoring and asked the opinions of students, parents and tutors to develop insights into the impact of tuition in the UK.
82,091
lessons delivered on Sherpa in the 23/24 AY
98%
of users would recommend us to a friend
2x
confidence in subject knowledge for Sherpa students
1
How effective is online tuition?
It's well proven that 1:1 tuition is one of the most effective ways to improve academic outcomes and boost a student's confidence. An hour a week with an experienced tutor can help students with tricky concepts or questions they don't feel confident asking in the classroom.
95%
believe tuition on Sherpa boosted their exam results
Students improved by...
1.52 grades
on average
How does having a tutor impact exam stress?
Almost all students are likely to experience some level of stress, with around 16% being 'highly test anxious'.
Having a tutor available to help answer any questions you may have about the exam, and particularly to work on exam technique, can dramatically help alleviate exam stress for students.
88%
say tuition helped with their exam stress
Students who continued tuition through exam season reported overall better mental well-being and reduced stress.
And how does it affect student confidence?
Students with higher confidence are shown to be more willing to learn as well as challenge themselves in school. It has long-term, positive effects on both a learner's academic outcomes and their success in other areas of their life!
We asked students to rate their confidence in school before and after starting online tuition.
Here’s where the average student’s confidence ranked before tuition:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Not Confident At All
Very Confident
And here's after their Sherpa tuition:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
On average, students were twice as confident in their schoolwork after receiving support on Sherpa.
What's the optimal spacing for tuition?
Students use tuition in very different ways! Some use it solely for exam technique practice shortly before an exam, whereas the majority utilise it consistently throughout the academic year to help with particularly difficult topics and practice questions.
We decided to find out - what is the correlation between grade improvements and the average spacing between Sherpa lessons?
Grade improvements drop as the spacing between lessons increases, showing, as expected, that regular lessons with a 1:1 tutor improve academic attainment.
More interestingly, when a student starts tuition has the largest impact on outcomes.
1
Starting in...
September to December
improved grades by
2.17
points on average.
2
Starting in...
January to March
improved grades by
1.76
points on average.
3
Starting in...
April to May
improved grades by
1.2
points on average.
2
Why do students start tuition?
Parents and students want to find a tutor for a variety of reasons. We asked students what initially prompted them to start searching for a tutor.
And what do they consider when searching?
Experience, qualifications and cost were the 3 main factors taken into account when a student looks for a tutor.
This lines up with Sherpa's mission of providing access to highly qualified and experienced tutors at a lower price than our competitors. Our competitive platform fee for tutors allows them to pass savings onto students.
2hrs 16mins
The average tutor response time!
91%
of students find a tutor they liked within 1 hour
Tutors on Sherpa respond to enquiry messages within 136 minutes on average. From there, you're able to set up free introductions to meet tutors you like.
Are students getting enough from school?
We've put together a new section in our report, investigating attitudes towards school from students, including what they think could be improved.
Hover or click to see reasons
Teaching a classroom of over 30 students requires a completely different approach and methods than 1:1 instruction. Trying to find group teaching methods as effective as 1:1 tutorials is yet to be done, so supplementing in-school education with 1:1 tutoring is a brilliant way to improve academic outcomes.
Sherpa's 1:1 tuition solves all of the problems identified with group tuition above, particularly thanks to our focus on highly-qualified and experienced tutors, who are all interviewed and vetted by our team.
What were the favourite features of Sherpa?
Quality of tutors was the most liked feature by parents and students, whereas payment protection was the favourite for tutors. With Sherpa's booking system, students and parents can cancel for free up to 12 hours before, allowing them to take flexible, on-demand sessions without being locked into a subscription or long-term contract.
97%
of students were satisfied with their tutor
98%
of students would recommend us to a friend.
3
How is online tuition being used?
We asked our users who initiated the search for a tutor.
And is 1:1 tuition usually focused on one subject? Or are students using 1:1 tuition for help with multiple school subjects?
How are students using lesson recordings?
One of the key advantages of online tuition is the ability to review lesson notes and watch lesson recordings to recap the content that was covered in the session.
We asked students how they used lesson recordings to get a better idea of when and how they use them for their learning.
4
Subjects & The Cost of Tuition
Sherpa covers hundreds of different subjects and levels, primarily focusing on KS3, GCSE and A-Level tutors.
What are the most popular subjects for 1:1 tuition?
How much does the average lesson cost?
What's the difference in cost between levels?
5
How does online tuition compare to in-person?
Over 4 years on from the first COVID lockdown, the shift to online tuition has stuck. It brings a huge number of benefits, including shorter travel times (and subsequent cost savings) as well as digital benefits such as recordings and automatically-saved lesson notes.
We surveyed our parents, students and tutors about their thoughts on online tuition vs in-person. First, we asked whether they would continue tuition online...
And then asked parents and students how they would compare each aspect of tuition online vs offline...
6
Environmental Benefits
Online tuition saves time, money and emissions by reducing the need to travel to the other party. We thought we'd do some calculations to work out how much time, money and emissions our students, parents and tutors have saved by switching to online tuition.
Our users saved
970,944
miles of travel
compared to travelling to in-person lessons
Enough to drive around the world 39 times!
Our users saved
32,365
hours of travelling
and helped to reduce traffic, too.
That’s 3.7 years of time taken back.
Our users saved
163,479
kgs of CO2
from being released into the atmosphere
That's the same carbon footprint as 16,347 people for a year in the UK.
Our users saved
£119,894
in fuel costs by choosing online tuition.
Just about enough to buy 2 Freddos!
What was our sample size?
Through our annual Year in review user survey, we collected responses from 351 tutors, parents and students who use Sherpa. This group was made up of 181 tutors, 96 parents and 76 students who has lessons over the last academic year (August 2023 - July 2024