Member Article

Corporate Lawyer Starts a Tutoring Revolution to Help Disadvantaged Pupils Bridge the Academic Gap

As students across the UK continue to catch up from learning lost during the Covid pandemic, concerns remain over worsening results for disadvantaged secondary school students, according to research published by the Department for Education.

A corporate lawyer from London, is passionate to play his part and make a difference with his new social enterprise, to give extra tuition to all children - regardless of their social status, bridging the ever-widening academic gap.

Adrian Levy, 51, from Wembley, Greater London, has enjoyed an incredible career as a partner with a global “magic circle” law firm, but, after 28 years in the corporate world, reaching his milestone 50th birthday and personally suffering the impact of Covid-19, Adrian knew he needed to change tack and embarked on his social enterprise dream. His dream is to ensure that every child is given the opportunity to reach their potential and through his online tutoring social enterprise, Adrian is trying to level-up the educational in balance between the “haves” and “have nots”. Adrian’s tutoring enterprise, which is lovingly inspired and named after his grandfather Peppo - who taught him the joy of learning and the importance of following your dreams - is to ensure that every child has a Peppo in their life. Someone who can be their teacher, mentor and help them realise their dreams.

Dad-of-three, Adrian said: “Last year, was monumental for me, it was my milestone 50th birthday and I lost my mother-in-law to COVID - she was a strong, principled woman and losing her at this point in my life caused me to reflect on what I had achieved and what I still wanted to achieve.

“My time over the last 30+ years has been dedicated to my career in law and I have been fortunate to work on incredibly interesting and challenging deals, including the largest ever real estate transaction. I could have continued with the same type of work for the next 10 years and continued being paid very handsomely, but during the pandemic, my perspective changed and I felt I could offer more through setting up my own social enterprise.

“My own kids have gone through the state education system, and through my work with a national children’s charity, I realised not much had changed since I left school 32 years ago - children with wealthy parents have access and funds for 1-to-1 tuition and therefore, outperform children who have no access to extra teaching/tutoring. For many years the academic gap has continued to widen and the pandemic has caused the gap to only get wider, with many disadvantaged kids being left behind with no prospect of reaching their potential.”

This blatant inequality drove Adrian to set-up Peppo Tutors, a GCSE and A-Level tutoring agency structured so that 1-to-1 private fees, fund tutoring for disadvantaged children.

After much soul searching, in November 2020, Adrian handed in his notice to Clifford Chance, the firm he had worked with since graduating and his first and only employer. The managing partner and fellow partners were surprised, but incredibly supportive. They showed so much flexibility working hard to identify other options, one of which was for Adrian to work on a part-time basis enabling him to maintain a practice whilst giving him the opportunity to establish Peppo.

So, to begin with, Peppo had one tutor, (Adrian’s son) and one student (Adrian’s daughter), but by the end of the summer 2021, Peppo had 50 top quality hand-picked prestigious tutors, including a number of retired teachers and a host of undergraduates and post graduates from Oxford, Cambridge and other top universities.

Adrian has currently given over 400 hours of tutoring for free to young people across London who were referred to him from foodbanks and community centers.

“The demand is huge!” says Adrian, “Every day we receive requests, sometimes from students asking us to help their siblings which proves that it’s not the lack of motivation that holds children back, but the lack of opportunity, and that’s what I want to change. Peppo Tutors is about creating a tutoring revolution where we can extend the highest quality tutoring support to both those who can afford it and those who would never dream of it”

“The past seven months have flown by and we have expanded very quickly. We are hoping to continue expanding and launching in Manchester in 2022 and eventually in cities across the UK. We are also now piloting some live tutoring sessions at a London library to try and reach even more children, particularly those who don’t have the technology to receive online tutoring.

“It is incredibly rewarding knowing that what we are doing is helping children who would otherwise be unable to afford it.”

One parent described being able to access free tutoring as ‘winning the golden ticket’, while another added: “The help and support has been fantastic. I was very worried that due to missing so much learning, my child would fall behind and struggle in his subjects, but tutoring has given him a huge boost and helped to improve his progress.”

Adrian added: “What we need now is more parents to consider paying for tuition with Peppo Tutoring - the more paying clients we have, the more free tuition we can offer to young people to help them reaching their potential. So, if you are considering tuition for your children, please have a look at what we offer because you will be doing more than just helping your own child.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chocolate PR .