7th June 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
It’s no secret that we’re disappointed when a student comes to us only a few days before an exam. We really try and encourage parents or students to think about tuition early and plan it well so they can have something consistent; it’s the most effective way to work with a tutor, and often means spending less. Of course, many clients contact us wanting last minute intensive tuition, but from a tutor’s point of view, how do we feel?
Obviously every tutor wants their students to do well, so there is the same sense of frustration that lessons didn’t begin earlier, but last minute lessons can be fun too, and present an interesting challenge for tutors. Once a tutor accepts that the student has started lessons late and realises nothing can be done about that now, it becomes a case of using the time as effectively as possible.
Last minute tuition becomes something like a logistical challenge. A tutor has to decide whether it’s worth trying to develop a student’s understanding, and the answer is almost always no. This is a shame, because it’s what our tutors are best at and what they want to do, but it also doesn’t take long for a tutor to care about the success of the student, so the disappointment of not tutoring proper understanding quickly goes out the window.
The lessons (or sometimes lesson!) involve the tutor considering the value of time spent on each topic, and as soon as time would be more valuably spent on a different topic, they move on. It is a strange way to teach, because essentially it involves a tutor knowing that something hasn’t been understood completely, but still moving on. It’s the opposite to everything we’re told when we learn to tutor.
Our tutors tend to be perfectionists. Most have perfect grades at both GCSE and A Level, and they’re very proud of that perfect record. It makes last minute tuition so difficult because they want their students to do perfectly too, but once that’s put to one side, it’s an amazing challenge to help students as much as we do with so little time.