10 Mar Northampton education centre celebrates a decade of transforming young lives

A Northampton education centre that has spent a decade helping young people rediscover their potential is celebrating its 10th anniversary – and the hundreds of students whose lives it has changed along the way.

Bauhaus Education, based at Notre Dame Mews in Northampton town centre, was founded in 2016 with a simple but powerful belief: every young person deserves the chance to succeed, no matter where they start. In that first year, founder Tutu Alaka was still working in a school and could only support on Saturdays, running sessions from Weston Favell Library on Wednesdays and Central Library at weekends, with a handful of students and two tutors. Two years later, Bauhaus moved into its first permanent home at Notre Dame Mews.

Ten years on, the OFSTED-registered centre has supported hundreds of students from Key Stage 2 through to A-Level, expanded into a second centre in Nottingham, and grown its tutor team to support a far wider range of learners. It is now marking its anniversary with a year-long ‘Decade of Discovery’ campaign – celebrating the journeys of students past and present, and looking ahead to its most ambitious chapter yet.

“Those early days were exhausting and uncertain, but they were also deeply affirming,” said Tutu, who stepped into the CEO role full-time in September 2025. “Bauhaus was built slowly, deliberately, and with purpose – and that foundation still shapes who we are today.”

Bauhaus was founded to address a gap that Tutu had seen repeatedly throughout her teaching career. “Too many capable young people were being let down by a system that was well-intentioned but overstretched,” she said. “Mainstream schools simply don’t have the capacity to provide sustained, one-to-one, wraparound support. That’s not a criticism of schools – it’s a reality of the education system. Bauhaus was created to sit in that gap.”

Many students come to Bauhaus through their parents, who are looking for the kind of personalised support their child cannot get in a mainstream classroom. Families seeking extra help sit alongside students referred by schools and Local Authorities – including young people at risk of exclusion, those with SEND or Education, Health and Care Plans, and learners who need a different environment to thrive. As an approved examination centre for AQA and Edexcel, Bauhaus can support students all the way through to qualification, offering face-to-face tuition in Northampton and online provision across the UK.

The approach at Bauhaus is grounded in cognitive science. “The brain has two key systems,” Tutu explained. “Working memory is like a small desk – it can only hold a few things at once and gets overwhelmed very easily. Long-term memory is more like a library – that’s where learning needs to end up if it’s going to last.” Rather than drilling students with last-minute cramming, tutors use structured retrieval practice and spaced learning to move knowledge into long-term memory – an approach Tutu has championed throughout her career.

Crucially, students are taught to understand this themselves. “When they understand that forgetting isn’t failure – it’s just how the brain works – anxiety reduces,” she said. “They stop thinking ‘I’m not clever’ and start thinking ‘I need the right strategy.'”

Over the past decade, Tutu has seen the profile of students arriving at Bauhaus change significantly. “We’ve seen a clear increase in the complexity of need. Rising levels of anxiety, school refusal, and emotional overwhelm are now far more common, particularly in the years following the pandemic. Many students arrive disengaged not because they lack ability, but because school has stopped feeling safe or manageable.” In response, Bauhaus has developed a trauma-informed, whole-child approach that places wellbeing alongside academic progress rather than beneath it.

The impact on individual students has been profound. Tutu recalls one student who arrived convinced he had already failed. “He didn’t listen to his parents, he resisted tuition, and his confidence was at rock bottom. Within his first few weeks at Bauhaus, something shifted. He realised he wasn’t being judged, rushed, or compared.” The student’s grades in English, maths and science improved by more than two grades, opening the door to sixth form. Years later, he graduated with a first-class degree.

“The students we find hardest to reach are often the ones who’ve completely shut down,” Tutu said. “By the time they reach us, they’re not resistant to learning – they’re resistant as a form of protection. We start with trust. Progress starts with a relationship long before academic content.”

Throughout the anniversary year, Bauhaus will be sharing a monthly education blog on its website, offering practical advice for students, parents and schools on everything from revision techniques to managing exam anxiety.

Bauhaus will also be sharing regular study tips and expert guidance across its social media channels, and plans to build on the success of its 2025 community family event with further events later in 2026. Families and schools wanting first access to blogs, tips and event invitations are encouraged to sign up to the Bauhaus enewsletter at here.

The anniversary year will also see Bauhaus share stories of former students who have gone on to achieve their goals and introduce families and schools to the team behind the learning.

The organisation is recruiting tutors across Northamptonshire for face-to-face teaching and across the UK for online provision, as it looks to grow the number of young people it can support.

Families interested in enrolling can find out more at www.bauhaus-education.co.uk. Tuition starts from £24 per hour.

Looking ahead, Tutu’s ambition is for Bauhaus to become the go-to provider for alternative and supportive education in the Midlands and a national model for what high-quality alternative provision can look like: “The vision is for Bauhaus to be more than a provider – it’s to be a benchmark, demonstrating that alternative education can be rigorous, compassionate, and transformative, and that young people thrive when systems are built around them, not the other way around.”