Whether you’re keeping up with home learning during the ongoing coronavirus school disruptions, or have chosen to home school your child, seasoned home tutor and former head teacher, Alison Matthias, has top tips to making it work.
No. 1: Prepare to flexible
Routine is important but the reality may be a little different. Accepting this is the key to success. Private tuition sessions often take little diversions along the way as we learn something new, find out what interests the learner or find an alternative way to teach that connects at that moment. Learning at home can make a learner restless or agitated, this is usually a cue to move to a different activity.
No. 2: Set intentions
Starting the day, week or session with intentions is a great way to keep focused. What do you want to learn or achieve? This may be different to what you need to achieve but it’s important to think about your needs too. Better still if you can see a way to make them align.
No. 3: Create a dedicated learning space
Making room to learn at home is never easy but the aim of the game is to create a space that is dedicated entirely to learning. It doesn’t have to be a whole room – it can be a nook, under the stairs or a corner of a room. The best space will be somewhere that doesn’t need to be dismantled every evening or interfere with social activities.
No.4: Take breaks
You have regular breaks in school and you will need them at home. Divide your time into bitesize chunks and set an intention for each one e.g. learn 5 more words in Spanish. Your break acts as a switch to move to a different activity or topic.
No.5: Get Support
Obvious as it may seem, you can’t do this alone. Whether you are a parent-come- teacher, or self motivated home learner – you need a support system. Share ideas with friends, talk about topics with the family, ask questions to tutors. There’s a real opportunity to here to get the tailored education that suits you or your child.
We offer one off tutor support or a regular tuition schedule that can help. The success of our tuition sessions are that we tailor the learning activities to suit you and provide you with dedicated time to ask questions and get real answers.
Our first session is always offered free of charge – after all, we understand that you need to know if it will suit you or your child. The first session is used to get to know the learner. We want to understand what motivates them – do they love Marvel? If so, can we use that to teach them English? Are they a gaming fanatic? Can that be used to help teach them maths? Do they find it hard to listen but can learn visually? All this information helps us create a learning plan that achieves real results.
We offer one to one tuition in one of our dedicated learning centres in Mold or St. Asaph or online tuition . Get in touch to find out more.