12th December 2014 1:00
By Blue Tutors
Tutoring primary aged students requires a unique set of skills.
It may be that the parents who have requested the tutor feels that the school environment is not stretching their child enough, or that there are concerns about the pupil’s achievement and understanding. Whatever the reason for the tuition, it is important to keep in mind that younger students will already have had very full days of learning at school, and the tuition, while rigorous, carefully planned and finely tuned to the individual, should not feel like more ‘work’ to the pupil.
Tuition for primary pupils is often used to reinforce concepts that have been introduced at school. Re-introducing these in innovative, imaginative but relevant ways may help learners to apply the concepts and gain a deeper and more solid understanding.
Primary aged pupils rarely derive their attention and drive from long-distance goals, such as exams or future aspirations. Learning has to be relevant to the here and now, with immediate benefits and rewards. Learning through play may be familiar in the Foundation Stage, but too often it is deemed to be immature or irrelevant to older primary students. This inclination to make young learners behave as older students, and learn in their styles, needs to be inverted. Who wouldn't rather have a hands-on, fun learning experience, rather than another lecture, or endless on-paper problems to solve?
Primary tuition offers a unique opportunity to foster a close, trusting relationship with the student. From this starting point, learning in fun and imaginative ways, which may not be possible with a class of thirty but which are opened up through the one-to-one set up, will ensure that the pupil taking additional classes through tutoring is not put under too much pressure, and is not turned off learning.