The Tutor System

Tutoring responds to the individual needs of our boarding pupils and is an essential part of the College’s pastoral care structure. All full-time members of the teaching staff are tutors and the team is supplemented by many experienced non-teaching tutors drawn from the wider College community. This enables the tutor-to-tutee ratios to be kept exceptionally low, at an average of 6:1.

The strength of the College’s system can be measured in the quality and warmth of the relationships in the houses between tutors and tutees. Fundamentally, tutors offer consistent and age-appropriate support and guidance through the critical – and often unpredictable and sometimes challenging – adolescent developmental stage.

The Role of a Marlborough Tutor

Each tutor is responsible for a small group of tutees, providing them with ongoing support and monitoring. They act as a sounding board, mediator and confidant, while reinforcing the standards and values of the College. They promote friendly dialogue and act as common-sense listeners.

Tutors are the first point of academic monitoring and advice, and have responsibility for following up with tutee Interim and Full Reports which are written once each half-term. The conversations which follow these reporting cycles are critical in assessing progress, encouraging personal reflection and setting individual academic targets at both a short-term and more holistic level.

Tutors take a friendly, informed interest in the pupils in their assigned house, contributing to the life of the house through social and co-curricular activities, as well as through a specific weekly evening duty night.

Tutoring Across Year Groups

In the Shell year, pupils can expect their tutor to focus on an induction to boarding, on establishing strong and mutually supportive relationships and on ‘settling in’ both socially and academically. As pupils move to the Remove and Hundred, it is right that the focus of tutoring changes to the more specific GCSE support needed at this level. This includes help with time management, coursework demands, the range of skills needed across a typical GCSE profile, targeting and achieving key grades, and the process of making choices for Sixth Form study.

In the Sixth Form, tutorial support is focused on making the jump to A level study; on continuing time management skills, support with independent research and learning skills, and on the process of considering university options.

All house tutor teams contain a mixture of skills and experience and, while pupils have a personal tutor, they continue to have access to all members of the house tutor team for support and advice as required.

Training and Development

Tutors receive regular ongoing training and support, both from the Housemasters/ Housemistresses in their houses and through centralised INSET. The focus is on pastoral issues affecting adolescents, plus specific academic and curricular matters relevant to Marlborough College. Tutors also have access to specialist training, such as that provided by the Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA), Youth Mental Health First Aid and MindEd organisations.