Northern Enterprise Awards 2021

55 | Northern Enterprise Awards 2021 Kip McGrath Education Centre Halifax, recognised within Northern Enterprise Awards 2021, offers personalised tuition services in Maths, English, and Science for children from around 6 to 16 years. As a franchise, Kip McGrath Education Centres have been helping students for over 45 years. The Halifax branch has been established for 27 years, giving the company a strong standing in its local community. Kip supports students with exam preparation for SATs, GCSEs, and Eleven Plus entrance tests and supports many children who need a boost in confidence or those who are not getting to grips with the standard methods and pace of classroom teaching. Company Director Chris Sellers states, “No two children are ever the same or have identical needs, so it’s always important for us to make sure that we’re working with the individual needs of each student as the focus of each session. Many students who come to Kip struggle academically and need a more focused individual approach to make sense of the work they’re presented with in school.” Due to Kip not being governed by a rigid curriculum, staff can work with greater freedom and move on when a child has adequately understood the concepts. It’s often not that children cannot undertake the work but that they have blocks in prior knowledge, confidence issues, or retention. Kip can dive deeper into concepts on a 1-2-1 basis and help unlock steps moving forwards. The company’s unique advantage is the way it approaches problems and uses its vast resource Tuition Provider of the Year 2021 - UK bank that it has on hand to support and scaffold the learning of any problem a child may have. Chris explains, “As the business has been running for such a long time, we have had the time to develop and refine resources. Including IT systems and methodology to make sure we can effectively always manage the tuition for any child in a bespoke and focused manner. So, with over 1.5 million different resources to hand, there aren’t many instances of children presenting a problem that we aren’t immediately able to help with.” Moreover, its ICT and resource system offers the company the scaffolding to create very purposeful and targeted programmes of study for each child. Still, its fundamental asset is the team of dedicated and experienced staff. Chris states, “All the tutors that work within our centre are fully qualified and experienced teachers with QTS status. Therefore, we can match the needs of the child to the skill set of the individual teacher, meaning that we can guarantee that the best approach is being taken for each child at every step of the way.” The COVID-19 pandemic certainly created challenges, and like many businesses, Kip had to adapt quickly. When all businesses were forced into lockdown, the company worked hard to move its tuition online. It retrained staff and worked with families to continue its tuition provision remotely using its newly developed online platform, which was established ahead of the first lockdown. Chris explains, “It was a challenging time, but with some grit, determination and a great team, we made the transition with minimal disruption.” Currently, Kip is seeing a trend in the increase of tutoring organisations/individuals cropping up due to the school closures throughout COVID-19. Suddenly everyone and anyone is a tutor as a quick response to a national problem in education. However, Chris states, “It takes a huge amount of effort to sustain a high quality, highly aspirational customer service business and many competitors in the industry struggle to maintain this long term. As has happened before, many of the pop-up competitors will disappear again over the coming years, and we will continue to hold strong and stand out from the crowd as a professional establishment that offers a very professional service.” The pandemic forced Kip to change and adapt to the situation presented. Chris explains, “The one thing it pushed us to do was develop quickly towards the online movement.” Although the centre is now back open for physical face to face lessons, Kip can now offer a hybrid model with both physical tuition and online offerings. Chris continues, “Many parents and children have found this beneficial, especially throughout the closures of school bubbles, as we were able to offer an online option for these periods of isolation and carry on as usual - whatever ‘usual’ is currently. Company: Kip McGrath Education Centre Halifax Contact: Chris Sellers Web Address: kipmcgrath.co.uk/halifax Email: [email protected] Oct21365 The Halifax branch has been established for 27 years, giving the company a strong standing in its local community.