How it works
BRIDGE is not a site for finding a tutor. We organise the teaching ourselves: we recruit and train the teachers, form the groups, and run each course from start to finish.
What follows is the whole mechanism: what a group is made of, how a course runs, why it is built this way, and what we deliberately do not do.
We count groups, not students
A group is something you can form, finish and count. One student who "found it a bit easier" is a feeling, not a result. Everything else in BRIDGE exists so that groups like this get formed and reach the end.
What one group is made of
- Students
- 8–12
- People running it
- 2
- Lessons
- Once a week
- Lesson length
- 60 minutes
- Course length
- 10 weeks
- Level test
- At the start and the end
- Certificate
- From 80% attendance
- Format
- Group only
From intake to certificate
- 1
We form the group
8–12 students at roughly the same level. The time is chosen to suit the students first.
- 2
We find teachers for that time
A teacher and a language helper, both already selected and trained.
- 3
The level test
A short test before the course starts. It exists to build the group, not to grade the child.
- 4
Ten weeks of lessons
One lesson a week at the same time, from the written curriculum. Attendance is marked every lesson.
- 5
The same test again
The difference between the two results is the result of the course.
- 6
Certificate and report
A certificate for students with 80% attendance or more. A report to the partner school on its own children.
Why it is built this way
Each of these was decided against a specific problem. None of them is an accident.
Problem: A person who knows the subject, knows the child's own language and can teach barely exists.
Two people in every lesson
The teacher runs the lesson; the language helper explains the hard parts in the child's own language. Finding one such person is almost impossible. Finding two is easy. The side effect matters more than the decision: a child is never alone with one adult.
Problem: The usual approach is to find a teacher first and then fit the children around them. That is why groups fall apart.
Time first, teacher second
We take a time that suits the students and only then look for a teacher who is free then. A 17-year-old volunteer has a more flexible week than a family with three children and a job.
Problem: If every volunteer invents their own lesson, quality depends on who happened to turn up.
We write the curriculum
Materials, a plan for every lesson and homework are prepared in advance. A teacher delivers the lesson rather than inventing it. That is why a trained volunteer can pick up a group at lesson seven and the children barely notice.
Problem: Projects like ours usually die from taking on everything at once.
Two tracks, and only two for now
Russian for school, and English. Adding a third subject is a setting for us, not a new project. But we will not do it until the model is proven on two.
A rule nobody can forget
An unapproved volunteer cannot be put in front of a group. This is not an instruction to a coordinator, it is a block inside the database: it refuses to save such a record whatever anyone clicks in the interface.
The coordinator sees a readable reason in her own language rather than a Postgres error. But it is the database that refuses. That is the only way to make a rule that cannot be got round through inattention, hurry or kindness.
Alina, 17
Volunteer application
- Safeguarding training
- Two references contacted
- Parental consent (under 18)
Approve to teach
Rejected by the database
parental consent required under 18
Two doors
Students
- Under-18s are referred by a school or organisation — they know the families and hold parental consent.
- Adults from 18 sign up themselves, with no school involved.
- We ask for no documents and check nobody's income.
- The level test exists to build a group, not to screen anyone out.
Teachers
- Aged 16 to 19.
- Application, automatic check, a language test, a video interview.
- Two references, BRIDGE training, a trial lesson.
- Parental consent, if the volunteer is under 18.
- Only after all of that: approved to teach.
Results, not intentions
Attendance
Marked every lesson. Volunteer hours and the right to a certificate are calculated from it.
The gap between the tests
The same test before the course and after it. That gap is the point of the whole thing.
How many finished
How many of the students we took on completed the course. Honest in a way that counting sign-ups is not.
How many groups fell apart
A group that did not make it to the end is counted too. Otherwise the statistics lie.
The numbers on this site come straight from the database and update themselves — we do not type them in. Until a course has finished we do not show them at all: a figure with no result behind it is a promise, not proof. We will show them when there is something to show.
What we deliberately do not do
One-to-one lessons
A private lesson is impossible — there is no such thing in the system. That is protection for the child, not a saving.
Private messaging
There is no "message privately" feature. There is nothing to moderate if it does not exist.
Checking documents
Demanding paperwork would turn away exactly the people the project exists for.
Anything paid
A paid version does not exist at all. Otherwise the free one soon becomes the second-rate one.
Working where we do not understand the context
Refugees, and girls in countries where education is closed to them — only alongside organisations already working there. First the model has to be proven here.
Which side are you coming from?
Three doors into the same project.