Tutoring during the daytime can be the real game-changer when considering if you could earn enough from tuition alone. Tutor My Kids, provide one-to-one tutors in Cambridge, Ely, Huntingdon and Newmarket for private and school clients. We’re increasingly working with local schools and have opportunities for great teachers to teach some fabulous kids during the daytime.
Daytime work
We support schools in Cambridgeshire with a variety of teaching and tutors during the daytime, during the school day. Students have the benefit of additional teaching from our private tutors in Cambridge, Ely and surrounding areas. Sometimes these sessions of tuition are at local schools and sometimes they are in the parents/carers’ homes.
These students are having extra lessons for a variety of reasons: additional sessions to supplement their learning ahead of exams, teaching outside of the classroom because they’re unable to join mainstream classes. Often this is due to anxiety and occasionally due to behaviour. The interesting thing is that invariably the behaviour stems from poor self esteem, personally or educationally and in the vast majority of cases these children thrive in a one-to-one situation.
As with most of our clients, we have the most need for English, maths and science tutors in Cambridge and Ely. Generally, we recruit qualified teachers, but we also have opportunities for non-teachers who have the right experience and aptitude.
Most students are KS3 and KS4, so an understanding of the GCSE maths, English and science curricula are important. Sometimes there are gaps stemming from the primary curriculum, so primary school teachers who are able to tutor the GCSE subjects are particularly useful. In fact, increasing numbers of our primary tutors are skilling themselves up to meet this need.
What personality traits are needed?
The students we work with need warmth, encouragement and support to bring out the best in them. Some need firm boundaries and expectations set. Sometimes the anxious students are able to engage with the tuition one day but unable to do so another day, so flexibility and understanding is key to keeping the tuition going for a period of weeks or months.
How do I find out more?
Please email Rachel Law to arrange to have an informal chat on the phone to find out if this might suit you.
If you’ve never considered a tutor for your child before, it can be a bit daunting to know where to start. The following will give you some pointers to ask the right questions. We’ll discuss the various options available and additional things to think about. Many of our clients have never had a tutor before and find our advice helpful.
What are the options?
There are a number of options to consider:
One-to-one tuition
In your home
At the tutor’s home
Group tuition
One-to-one tuition
One-to-one tuition is one tutor working directly with your child. This ensures that the teaching is focused entirely on the needs of your child, rather than being split across a group of students with potentially very different needs. This is felt to be the gold standard of tutoring, however, it does of course, as with all tutoring, hinge entirely on how good the tutor is. This can be in your home or at the tutor’s home.
If the tutoring takes place in your home, you know that your child is in a safe environment, you have greater oversight over what is being taught and it is often more convenient, especially if you have a busy schedule and/or other children. At Tutor My Kids, our tutors in Cambridge, Ely and surrounding areas, always see clients in their homes as we think that this gives the best results.
Many tutors prefer to tutor in their homes because they can tutor a greater number of students in the time they have available. There are undoubtedly some great tutors who tutor from their own homes. Over the years, however, we’ve had a few horror stories: One parent was regularly collecting her daughter from the tutor and finding her sitting at a computer playing a (good and useful) word game, but one that she could have done at home to supplement the tuition, but not as tuition. Since she swapped to Tutor My Kids and the tutor comes to her in Cambridge, she knows exactly what her daughter is learning. Another client felt that her daughter wasn’t getting the best focus from visiting her tutor in Ely at his home because the house was noisy and there were interruptions from his children.
Group tuition
Group tuition scores because it is a more cost-effective option that one-to-one tuition, but there is, of course, a dilution of the focus of your child, especially if their needs are different from the children around them or there are stronger personalities in the group. Potential problems can also occur with focus on areas that are not needed and not enough focus on the areas that your child needs. For example, we worked with a year 4 student who was regularly attending a training centre and her ability to manipulate numbers was very impressive, but when Tutor My Kids assessed her, it revealed some very significant gaps in her maths understanding, which was resulting in poor scores in her tests at school. Her mum and dad thought they were helping her, but it wasn’t addressing the problems that she had.
With group tuition it is very hard to tailor the tuition to the individual student and often the curriculum taught is fixed with the whole group moving onto the next lesson, whether or not it has been understood by all the students.
Additional things to think about
As already discussed, whichever options you look at, they are as good as the tutor who is working with your child. It’s always wise to take-up recommendations where possible. At Tutor My Kids we’re incredibly grateful that most of our clients come in from recommendations from friends and family who are seeing the benefits of working with our amazing tutors in Cambridge and Ely areas.
It’s important also that you know who you’re letting into your home. If you’re not working with an agency such as Tutor My Kids who vet their tutors thoroughly, do ensure that they are DBS checked. In addition, we always insist that there is an adult in the house whilst tuition is occurring and that it happens in a family-friendly, downstairs room, such as a kitchen or dining room.
At Tutor My Kids, most of our tutors are qualified teachers because we know that they have more experience of teaching in a variety of ways to help students understand. It’s certainly worth asking about the background of any potential tutor. If the tutor is for your primary-aged child, this is particularly key as not following the methodologies taught in school can cause further confusion, rather than providing help.
Get in touch
For a free, informal discussion with Tutor My Kids about getting a tutor in Cambridge, Ely, Huntingdon and surrounding areas, please contact us at hello@tutormykids.co.uk to arrange a time to chat.
As regular readers of my blog will know, catching up with our amazing tutors at Tutor My Kids is one of my favourite parts of my work. See the best bit of my job, if you need any further proof!
Following a chat yesterday with one of our teachers, who is one of our tutors in Ely, I was reminded just how much I enjoy what I do and how much the tutor does too. Which got me pondering as to what it is that makes us happy at work. A little research later showed the following things:
Recognition
Autonomy
Interesting work
Flexibility
Recognition is the highest of them all!
In our busy lives, we forget to say thank you to our employees, employers and colleagues. Work gets in the way. In some cultures, e.g. teaching with which I’m most familiar with, there is such a pressure from senior management, governors and parents that much of what is communicated is what is not right and needs changing, rather than what is good and needs celebrating.
At Tutor My Kids, we’re really lucky that our parents and schools really appreciate what we do and especially the extra mile that our tutors go to ensure the very best lessons for our students. This is an old blog, but one of my favourite because it illustrates this point exactly – when was the last time a parent said thank you to you?
So, action for today: Thank someone for doing their job well!
Autonomy
Autonomy – being in control of your own workload is another key one. If you’re feeling stressed at work, it may be down to wanting more control over how you do your work.
One of the key things that I think makes the tuition at Tutor My Kids most effective, is that we trust our teachers to plan the lessons to match the needs of our students perfectly, so our students get the very best tuition and our tutors are using their professional skills and experience to get the best results for their students.
Could you explore being able to tackle the tasks in your job in another way? Are there ways to lose the less important tasks altogether and focus on those that will make a bigger difference?
Interesting work
We all have bits of our work that are less interesting, but research shows that if we are intellectually stimulated that we are happier at work.
With less paperwork to do, our tutors can get on with the business of teaching. One of our amazing tutors was kind enough to offer this testimonial for us:
Working for Tutor My Kids has reminded me why I originally wanted to teach – to make a difference in children’s learning and confidence, and see them progress. As a senior manager for the last twelve years of my full time career, I got further and further away from the children and deeper and deeper into paperwork about why they weren’t progressing fast enough. Each child is an individual, has different needs and responds to different learning styles. The pupils I work with through TMK all benefit from a plan that I design specifically for them and deliver on a 1:1 basis. I see them progress and gain confidence through small steps – and realise that what I am doing is making that difference. Being a tutor with TMK is so rewarding – I have regained confidence in my teaching ability, working with delightful children and parents who enjoy seeing their children progress.
Sue, one of our heavenly maths tutors in Ely and Cambridge.
Are there bits of your job you can delegate, put off, minimise or remove to enable you to do more of the things that you are good at and love?
Flexibility
In our increasingly, varied and marvellous world, we all have demands upon our time. Maybe you’re a parent, or a carer and have to juggle these aspects of your life with your work?
Being a private tutor for Tutor My Kids is a great alternative to teaching for many teachers who are wanting more flexibility. We have teachers who tutor just an hour a week and those who work throughout the day with our school clients, so they can be at home for their kids after school. And those who tutor after school so they can indulge hobbies such as gardening in the daytime, care for relatives and a whole host of other things.
I read recently about a company that had introduced results-driven work patterns – they allowed their employees to chose their working hours, so long as the work got done. So some empoyees came in early so they could leave early and collect their kids from school, others later because it suited their night owl personalities. Not everyone has work or employers that has this flexibility, however in what ways could you approach your work differently to allow yourself greater flexibility?
Be grateful
Research also shows that we get more of what we focus on – in the same way you suddenly see loads of a car you’re thinking of buying on the roads.
So, focus on the great things in your life and you’ll see more of them.
And if you are a teacher who’s interested in finding out more about tutoring in Cambridge, Ely and surrounding areas, do take a look at our tutors page and get in touch to arrange an informal chat to see if it might be right for you and give you more recognition, autonomy, interesting work and flexibility!
Parents want to help their children, but worry about starting too young.
At Tutor My Kids we arrange private tutors in Cambridge, Ely and the surrounding areas, we don’t believe that tuition should ordinarily be started too early or need to be in place for extended periods.
HOwever, if your child is struggling, it may be worth getting some help in early.
Good reasons to get help earlier
There are good reasons to get help earlier than later.
Some subjects, maths especially, are very sequential; new knowledge is built upon existing understanding. If this base knowledge is not secure, then it can cause problems higher up the school. Very much like building a wall, it make sense to ensure the foundations are secure. Without this help, maths gaps can occur.
Some children, especially those with learning difficulties such as dyslexia, benefit from a lot of repetition, so this can also be a good reason to get a private tutor for your child.
Even relatively young children become aware that they’re not keeping up with their peers and this can cause issues of lack of confidence. Building confidence is probably the main reason that parents approach Tutor My Kids when looking for a private tutor in Cambridge and Ely areas.
How to choose the right tutor for younger children
At Tutor My Kids, the majority of our tutors are teachers – after all, it was founded by a teacher, so it’s one of our core approaches. We think that teachers teach better than non-teachers. For primary aged children, we only recruit fully qualified teachers so that the highly specialised curriculum is taught using the same methodologies as your child’s school.
On top of being a qualified teacher, we think it’s really important to have a teacher who can teach in a really supportive way, especially for less confident and/or younger children. It’s equally important that the tuition feels like a low-key activity rather than a high stakes endeavour.
The location of the tuition is an important consideration too. At Tutor My Kids, our tutors tutor in Cambridge and Ely area in the support and safety of your home, providing, we think, the perfect learning environment for children to learn.
How do I find out more?
We’re really blessed with clients who recommend us – take a look at their testimonials for their generous and kind comments.
To discuss if a Tutor My Kids tutor might be might for your child in Cambridge, Ely, Huntingdon and surrounding areas, please email Rachel or call the office on 01223 858421.
There are various red flags that can point towards dyslexia or dyslexic tendencies. Take a look at our recent blog for more information: What is dyslexia.
Which tests are available?
There are 3 options in order to get more clarity if you think your child has dyslexia:
Dyslexia Screening
Dyslexia Assessment with a Patoss approved specialist
Full educational assessment with an Educational Pschologist
A dyslexia screening is a quick, inexpensive way to assess if your child is showing the signs of dyslexia. The results are worded as low ‘risk of’ dyslexia or high ‘risk of’ dyslexia. The reason that these dyslexia screening tests are worded this way is oddly not testing dependent, but dependent on the person doing the test. Only an Educational Psychologist or a Patoss approved specialist is allowed to say definitively that an individual definitely has dyslexia or not. It is, however, fair to take it that if your screening test shows a high risk of dyslexia, then your child is dyslexic. It gives information as to the areas that your child finds difficult which enables you to share this information with teachers and other professionals to get additional help for your child.
A Patoss (Member of the professional association of teachers of students with specific learning difficulties) assessor can formally diagnose dyslexia. These tests are a little more involved than a dyslexia screening and can be a good next step if you want to have your child’s dyslexia formally diagnosed. If you think your child may have a number of issues, such as ADHD, ASD and OCD, as well as possible dyslexia, an Educational Psychologist may be more appropriate.
An educational psychologist is able to conduct tests to assess across a fuller range of issues, such as delayed development, OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder, ADD (attention deficit disorder), ASD (autistic spectrum disorder – Asperger type traits). So this is a good option to review your child in the whole.
Which is best for my child?
This depends entirely on the needs of your child.
A dyslexia screening is perfect if you think that dyslexia is the only issue for your child and you want a quick and economical test to quickly count it in or out.
A Patoss test is more appropriate if you want to have dyslexia formally diagnosed and more specialist testing conducted and are not concerned that there are other issues affecting your child’s learning.
If you think a more wide-ranging screening is needed for your child to include a wider range of possible issues with learning, then an assessment by an educational psychologist can be a good choice.
Tutor My Kids offer dyslexia screenings. For more information, take a look at our Dyslexia page.
Dyslexia is a learning difficulty which show as difficulty in three main areas:
Phonic Difficulties
Processing Speed
Memory/Working memory
The presence of all three is needed before a child would be thought to be dyslexic.
Phonic Difficulties
Difficulties in phonics (the sounds that make up words) can be around finding it difficult to learn the sounds, mixing up sounds such as d and b, v, f and ph and/or blending sounds together such as sp and fl. These problems can make it hard for children to read, understand what they’re reading, spell and write well.
Processing Speed
Processing speed is to do with how quickly children process information and instructions (written or verbal). It’s the time between hearing an instruction and the brain responding to it. It’s absolutely not about intelligence. It’s not unusual to find very intelligent dyslexic children with processing speeds that are slower than non-dyslexic child of the same age.
Memory and Working Memory
Difficulties keeping things in short-term memory and transferring them into long-term memory can be a part of dyslexia.
Working memory is slightly different – this is about keeping one thing in your head whilst listening to or processing another. Dyslexic children typically find it difficult to keep a string of instructions in their head and find it easier if those instructions are given individually. If you need to write down telephone numbers in groups of 3 or 4 figures, you may have this difficulty too.
Can my child have some of these difficulties?
If your child has all three of these difficulties, it’s possible that your child could be dyslexic.
If 1 or 2 of these issues are present, it’s likely that your child will find it harder to learn, but would not be felt to be dyslexic.
How can I check this out?
Tutor My Kids offers dyslexia screening which will allow you to quickly and cheaply see if dyslexia is a concern with your child.
At Tutor My Kids, tutors in Cambridgeshire, a maths assessment is a usual part of our process of putting in the right tutor for your child. It enables us to assess your child’s abilities, their maths gaps and how they approach their work. The importance of getting the right tutor in terms of personality and approach, who will bring out the best in your child is, in our opinion, an integral part of getting the best tutor for your child.
Whether your child is struggling with the basics or the more advanced work makes a huge difference in finding the best maths tutor for them. A strong mathematician may benefit from a tutor who can really question and stretch them, whilst an underconfident student needs a much more gentle, encouraging approach. Establishing this can make the all the difference between ‘ok’ tutoring and exceptional tutoring.
Establishing where your child is with their learning
How confident a student is with their maths is a key determiner to the kind of tutor who will work best with them. Students who are working on the higher paper and are looking to get the best grades for sixth form, invariably need a supportive approach, but one which challenges them to think strategically to tackle the type of questions at level 8/9. A student who has always thought of themselves as a weak mathematician will need someone who can fill in missing gaps, gently, to raise their confidence and enable them to gain the marks they need to pass their GCSE maths. The new GCSE exams need a particular set of skills – see What’s different about the new GCSEs and what skills are needed? Whilst dyscalculia is rare, it can be a problem. At Tutor My Kids, we do offer dyscalculia screening. Take a look at How dyscalculia screening helped a parent. So, it’s absolutely key to establish where your child is with their learning. Then we can look at the personality match between the student and the tutor.
Getting the personality match right
At Tutor My Kids, we think that getting the right personality match for your child is absolutely key to great tuition. We always meet you and your child in your home, to get a feel for your home ‘culture’ and your child’s personality. We establish what kind of approach will best support your child. We meet all our tutors at Tutor My Kids face to face and know the kind of students that they most prefer to work with – some love pushing the most able students, others simply adore helping the students that don’t ‘get’ maths. This joint knowledge and personal approach helps us to get the best possible match of tutor for your child and your family.
Putting it all together
This is where the magic happens. We put together your child’s level, approach to learning, confidence and personality and bingo we get a great tutor matched to your child to help and support them in their goals. It’s brilliant when we get this right! Student’s simply fly! See our client testimonials and tutor testimonials for a taste of this.
If you’d like more information on tutors in Ely, Cambridge, Newmarket and Huntingdon, take a look at our For Parents page, email Rachel or call Rachel on 01223 858421.
If you’re a teacher interested in finding out how to join our amazing team and working with really well assessed students, please take a look at our For Tutors page, email Rachel or give her a call on 01223 858421.
I’ve never met a child without some gaps in their maths learning; it’s inevitable. How they affect a student depends on where the gaps in their knowledge are.
Why gaps in maths knowledge occur
Gaps in learning maths can occur for a huge number of reasons. Maths is hugely sequential, which means that many new concepts build upon previously taught ones – miss one and you may have problems. Missing learning can result from any number of factors: missing lessons, not grasping a concept fully before the class moves on, losing concentration, teacher absences and a host of other reasons. It’s not unusual for sight or hearing problems to be picked up part-way through a school year which means children may not have been able to see or hear the lessons well. On top of that, there have been curriculum changes.
New curricula
In 2014, the new primary school maths curriculum was introduced, which meant that (in order to move us higher up the international education rankings) pupils were expected to know more maths earlier. This means that if your child was born in 2002-2004 (and to an extent 2006-2008), there were in the thick of that and may have more gaps than younger students. These years had to get up to speed really quickly for the new year 2 and year 6 primary school SATs, which was a problem for many. I wrote about this in 2015 – Why is my child finding maths particularly hard at the moment?
Plus to compound that the new GCSEs are very different from the old ones – take a look at What’s different about the new GCSEs and what skills are needed to succeed. These exams require a more thorough understanding of the curriculum, more skills in problem-solving and ability to retain knowledge of all the curriculum. It’s hardly surprising there are many students struggling.
What problems are caused
Gaps in maths cause difficulty in taking on board new concepts, which can delay or pause learning in some topics. If these gaps are very early (foundation or year 1) in the curriculum, it can mimic the effects of dyscalculia – see Does my child have dyscalculia? Gaps later in the curriculum tend to have a less profound effect, but can still be problematic.
Much of the tutoring that our teachers do at Tutor My Kids, in maths, is gap filling. Whether it’s dealing with a year 3 child who’s struggling or a GCSE student who needs to simply pass their exam.
For information on maths tutoring, click here, email Rachel or call Rachel Law on 01223 858421.
How dyslexia screening enabled a parent to make plans to support her daughter.
What is dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia is having specific difficulties with maths around size of numbers (being able to know if a number is greater than another number), being able to estimate how many counters there are in a group (subitising) and in recognising patterns (really important for learning number bonds and times tables). So, why can dyscalculia screening be useful?
In the same way that testing for dyslexia can be useful – see 4 reasons to arrange an dyslexia screening, it can give useful information to give to school so they can focus their efforts in the classroom or through their interventions for your child. It can also help you to support your child at home yourself or with a private tutor.
Recently, we had a parent approach us who was concerned that her daughter might be dyscalculic because she had always had difficulties in maths. Dyscalculia is quite rare; it’s estimated that between 3-6% of the UK population may suffer, so we discussed whether it might be dyscalculia or historical maths gaps that might be causing her current difficulties. Take a look at Does my child have dyscalculia for more information on this.
How the screening works
Mum felt that arranged a screening would allow her to know if there was an underlining issue or simply maths gaps. The screening was carried out in the comfort of her home, where her daughter was most secure by Tutor My Kids and took about an hour. The screening came back as negative, which was a huge relief to mum. But, there was still the issue to deal with of why her daughter behind.
How the screening helped this parent
Having ruled out dyscalculia, We very much thought that it was maths gaps. that were causing the issues and needed to be sorted.
Maths is a hugely sequential subject and rather like building a wall, it’s important that the foundations are secure before adding further layers. And filling in those layers (think underpinning a subsiding house!) when they’re missing. Most children have gaps in their maths knowledge. If they’re in the very early years, this can have quite an impact on maths learning and attainment. At Tutor My Kids, we think that it’s really important to get the right tutor and this is especially true with maths tuition.
With this parent is was really important to get a primary school teacher, who had taught early years, to tutor, so the very early gaps could be filled and this girl could get her maths learning back on track.
Dyslexia is a cluster of symptoms which can cause students to find reading, writing, processing information quickly and remembering things tricky. Take a look at Could my child be dyslexic for more details.
Reasons to test for dyslexia
There are several good reasons to test for dyslexia. If you know the areas that your child is having difficulties, you and school can help with those areas. If there are processing issues highlighted as part of the dyslexia, this might suggest that investigating extra time in GCSEs and A levels – take a look at Could my child get extra time for GCSEs and A levels.
Potential reasons not to test
Some parents are concerned the by having a dyslexia screening, it may ‘label’ their child as dyslexic. Increasing numbers of well-know successful people (Jamie Oliver, Richard Branson) have helped to finally dispel the myth the dyslexia means stupid, which is a fantastic as this has been a huge injustice to people with dyslexic traits.
I think the only reason that I have ever come across for not testing is a child I taught once, who declared that he couldn’t do that (the piece of work) because he was dyslexic. However, this really isn’t a reason not to screen for dyslexia as much as a lesson in how you communicate that information to your child.
Many children find it hugely reassuring that there is reason why they find some things harder than their peers. This can be communicated within the context of ‘You may always have to work a little harder than your friends but there are things that we can help you with to make life a little easier.’
Take a look at our dyslexia testing page , email Rachel or call Rachel Law on 01223 858123 for a chat about dyslexia screening and if it might be right for your child.
