Windsor Tutorial
How Can Parents Best Help Their Children?
Some parents are fortunate. I happen to have studied and taught the same subjects as both my children so I was able to help them a lot. However, syllabuses change, knowledge changes over time and you're really not always sure you are doing the right thing if you're not trained. Then there is the general awkwardness and frustration of teaching yor own child. If you don't know what you are doing you could be doing more harm than good.
If you teach your child, you are going to have to do your best to be patient and create opportunities for your child to impress you. Children always want to impress their parents. They run home from school and show off the prizes they have won. When you are teaching them they are going to experience your disappointment acutely everytime they get something wrong.
So teaching your own child is a daunting prospect. You have to remember to agree to terms of a contract beforehand.
The most important thing you can do for your child is to help them organise their work and their time.
The Role of the Teacher Revisited
If you take a blank sheet of paper and as a mental exercise write down everything there is to know about teaching, you'd expect to fill several pages. In actual fact, you would struggle to fill a page. Most of the literature about teaching practice is about the classroom and teaching thirty or so children at once. If you remove that from the equation, teaching is straightforward. It's about analysing the content and ensuring it is accessible to the students and ensuring the students have the skills they need.
On the other hand, you could fill pages and pages with what there is to know about learning. Teaching starts before the lesson. Most students are unaware of the amount of preparation that goes into delivering a single lesson. Most of the work comes from analysing the content and designing the delivery so that the student "gets it" the first time. Without effective content delivery students are put off learning the subject. Teaching is the more passive role of making the subject matter accessible and learning is the more active role of amassing copious amounts of knowledge and skills. During each lesson, the focus is on the student and on learning, not on teaching.
But passive does not mean easy.
Empowering Students to Take Control
The most successful students are the independent learners. You can predict the A* students. They are the ones who cockily tell you they are going to get all A*s, even if their current results do not support the claim. They are very easy to teach but also very demanding. If you tell them what they are doing wrong, they will put it right. They do not cling to their particular method of study nor do they see their learning styles as personality traits. They try to set the pace and agenda of the lessons which go at a phenominal rate and they demand they have full comprehension of the topic before moving on.
The role of the tutor in the success of these students is vital. Whilst being very driven they lack experience and have a very limited view of what they are supposed to learn and do not yet know the pitfalls. Inferential knowledge will largely be hidden from them until they have to answer some of the tougher exam questions, but typically this comes with time. Since the tutor can see into their future it is important to teach this aspect along with the content so the students are aware of the expected competencies as they go along. Often, this comes too late and a lot of hard work is needed just before exams to catch up, putting needless pressure on the students.
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Motivation and Self-Belief
How much do motivation and self-belief contribute to success? I would estimate somwhere between 90% and 99%. There's no point doing something if you believe you are going to fail. Every mistake you make, every setback will negatively re-inforce what you already believe. So before you start on any task, you need to objectively evaluate whether or not you are capable of succeeding at the task, otherwise don't waste your time.
Factors to take into consideration include how many people have previously succeeded at the task. If that number exceeds 6 million, then it is more than probable that you are capable too.
Once you have established that you are physically and mentally capable, keep track of the deficits in your knowledge. Analyse what you are going wrong. Be reflective. If there is a topic you find difficult it is normal to try and avoid the topic and make yourself feel better by spending time on topics you know well. Your dopaminergic pathways will keep you glued to your favourite topics and you will neglect the ones that need you most.wtcms wtcm wtcms wtcms wtcms wtcms wtcms
One-to-One Tuition
There are many reasons for having a personal tutor. Sometimes, students have missed school due to illness or other reasons. The method of classroom teaching may not suit some children who need more attention and get left behind. Others have acquired gaps in their knowledge along the way, the class is steaming ahead with no time to revisit topics and they just need their problems diagnosed. With the National Tutoring Programme, the Government have acknowledged the role of private tutors and sought to make private tuition accessible to more children.
Private tutors have always been there and are to a large extent responsible for the high grades announced every year. Education, even in the state sector, has always been semi-private. Ironically, in Victorian times, if you were wealthy you had a governess or private tutor, and if you were less well off, you went to school. The role of the private tutor is usually not acknowledged and schools generally take credit for the A and A* students they produce. If you know a student who has been struggling but has suddenly improved, suspect private tuition.
Why Am I only getting a Grade B?
Good question. You work as hard as everybody else, sometimes even harder. Yet other students seem to find things easier or getter better grades. Are they just more intelligent than you?
Not really, no. There's a set of skills that each student needs for each subject and a set of expectations that must be set before you start a subject. If a skill is missing or your expectations of what you are supposed to be doing have not been properly set at the start of the course, you will tend to get a little lost.
Often you spend the year memorising content and then wait till the end of the year, exam time, before you worry about your comprehension skills and then call it "exam technique" when in reality it should be the first thing you address at the start of the course.
Often, you are half way through the course before you realise you have retained less than 10% of the content and the study technique you have been using is not effective.
So take our quiz to test the effectiveness of how you study and test the essential skills you need before embarking on a GCSE or A level course.
About WTCMS
We opened as a small private tutorial college in 2004 in the center of Windsor and then decide to change to a less formal model and moved to a large house in Wraysbury. This was what the students preferred. They wanted to be in a less clinical environment and wanted to be able to relax. The maximum number per class was four and a lot of emphasis was on one-to-one tuition so the ability to relax whilst being in an academic environment was important.
Fees per Student
Contact Us
windsortutorial@aol.com
London, UK
+44 1784 483 566