15th June 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
It’s an interesting time of year because around half of the requests we receive in early June are for students in the middle of exams. Obviously this is normal, and we try to help those students when we can, but calling us to ask for a tutor by the following day, or even on the same day is a real logistical challenge, and that’s before one thinks about whether it’s actually effective.
We try to communicate the tutoring relationships which are most successful. Having a lesson a week for an extended period of time has so many benefits. To start with it means that the student can take time to contemplate and understand their work, rather than trying to cram a term’s worth of material into just a few days. We all learn better when we can take time to think about things at our own pace.
A longer time between the first and last lesson also allows the tutor student relationship to flourish. Tutors learn the best approaches to teaching different ideas based on the student’s preferences, and being able to set an amount of homework the student can cope with allows the student to practise everything discussed in the lessons.
When a parent says that they would like 2-3 hours of tutoring a day for 5 days in a row, all the positive benefits above go out of the window. The tutor won’t learn nearly as much about the student in that space of time, and it’s really difficult for the tutor to effectively set homework because the student will be studying so much and won’t have time. The alternative is that the student tries to do too much outside of the tutor’s lessons and becomes exhausted. Maybe the biggest obstacle, though, is that a few days before an exam, students aren’t in anything like the ideal emotional state to study; they’re anxious about doing badly and find it difficult to focus on the tutor’s instructions.
What we hope is that parents or students read our advice long before the exam deadlines. The value of tuition is so much better when planned out over a long period of time. We actually find that sometimes students have a greater total duration of lessons when they come to us at short notice, than if they had got in touch 6 months ago, and the lessons aren’t nearly as effective.