There are lots of different types of school tutoring, a few of them are listed below.
Homeschooling
Sometimes if a pupil is unable to attend school for a period of time, either due to illness or temporary exclusion, tutoring can be arranged to ensure that the student can continue to learn effectively from home. This is important to make sure that, in the case of extended school absence, the student can stay connected and up to date with learning and still achieve key learning objectives during that time. This can be arranged in lots of different ways but usually the parent will discuss with the tutor what time works best and start from there to ensure that the needed hours are covered each week in a mutually convenient way. Tuition can take place solely at home or a combination of in-school and home tutoring if the student is transitioning back into school life.
Sometimes one tutor can be referred for a general academic support approach and other times different specialist subject tutors may be referred, depending on the student’s primary needs at the time. At all times a line of communication is kept open with the relevant staff members at the school along with the person at the school who arranged the tutoring, which is usually the head of year or allocated SENCO lead.
Academic intervention
Every school and student wants to achieve the very best outcome when it comes to key exams. One of the ways we work with schools is to facilitate grade-boosting tutoring for year groups, usually Y11s who are working towards their GCSE exams. The focus is specifically on exam preparation and honing technique. Tutors work with students to help to solidify what they know and work on how best to apply this in an exam context.
Hospital education
We refer tutors to hospital education services to help students who are off school in the longer term. This is different to a usual school referral as there are more complex needs to be met. In some cases, students may not be aiming for specific exam goal outcomes but simply to re engage with learning in a way that feels safe and comfortable.
Learning can take place either at the relevant hospital education or alternative learning provision centre, at the pupils home or online. Blended learning is also an increasingly popular approach – this phrase simply means a combination of these different delivery methods.
Children’s home tutoring
Many children in this setting have experienced trauma and troubling pasts and in the context of a new space are engaging with academic learning again. Many are in process of transitioning to new schools so support lasts a few weeks typically and so is much shorter term in nature. Tutors will often focus on finding ways to help learners engage that are ‘out of the box’ in order to make learning fun, approachable and positive. The focus is on making sure that leaners who have been pushed out of educational settings through difficult life circumstances have a path back in that feels positive and achievable.
SEN tuition
Sometimes schools recognise that pupils have additional educational needs and tutors can be referred to help with these. Dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia and ASD are a few of the specific additional learning needs that learners may have when accessing additional tuition. Tutors assess the student to find out how best to deliver the tuition and keep a line of communication open with the school to keep track of how tutoring is going. Progress templates are also kept to track how and where the student is growing in confidence and ability.
Exam re-sit tuition
If students don’t achieve their needed GCSE results, tutoring can take place in schools in small group settings in order to help with exam retakes. The aim of tutoring of this nature is to help leaners achieve a certain grade and so tutorials tend to be very specifically geared towards exam technique. Tutors work with learners to help them to become more familiar with the exam board, exam layout and curriculum content in order to help them to achieve their needed goal.