20th December 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Tutors are always keen for as much information as possible before they accept the offer to tutor a student and before the first lesson so they can prepare. There are lots of really important factors like the examination board and specific topics to be covered, but interestingly the student or parent’s description of what is needed, why the student is struggling, might not be very helpful. Is the student in the best position to identify why they’re not doing well?
As a society we regularly take polls and get feedback from young people to find out how happy they are with their education, and what they think should change. We would never suggest that these surveys are pointless because it’s great to understand more about how students feel, but there is a reason that education isn’t simply led by students. This isn’t determined by age either, many adults will freely admit that they regularly make bad decisions and that they are better off with more guidance.
A recent survey showed that the majority of students think that more practical skills should be taught at school which will enable them to cope with emotional and psychological problems in later life as well as better financial planning skills. The question of why we need academic skills is something we all remember being asked in school, and most of us realise how invaluable they are as we continue through working life.
Frequent tutor feedback following the first few lessons is that it was clear why the student thought that they were bad at something, but the stumbling block was actually something very different. For example, students will often say they really don’t understand an arts subject, and the tutor quickly realises they understand it very well, but don’t know how to plan and write an essay. Sometimes the fix is easy, sometimes not so easy but more often than not, the fix isn’t what the student or their parent thought it would be.