There were so many great sessions that we couldn't get to them all but here are just some of the learnings...
Tutoring Towards a Life Worth Living, with Diego Melo.
- Students often feel a lack of status, lack of certainty, lack of autonomy, lack of relatedness, lack of feeling like anything is fair which is disempowering.
- Create safety and security
- Start with a low threat environment
- Don’t dangle the carrot, feed them the carrot.
- Don't be afraid to go slow with people.
Maths Anxiety and Dyscalculia: The How and the Why for Tutors, with Judy Brice.
- Lots of kids have anxiety about learning
- Anxiety is a barrier to learning
- There are strategies to reduce anxiety including
- Making students feel safe, heard by bringing down the content level, not starting with a formal test, give time for students to think, remove time-pressured tasks and introduce gamification.
- Ideas for using an online whiteboard
- Create and apply colour code
- Create cards (image or text) that students can move around
- Make it multisensory and use lots of visuals.
- Compliment online with physical activities
- Recommend or bundle a stylus or tablet.
Marketing Masterclass: How To Get More Students, with Alex Asher.
- Challenges most tutoring agencies feel when it comes to getting more students:
- Competition from other tutoring companies
- Is everyone's tutoring online these days?
- Price wars.
- Best ways to overcome these challenges:
- Pick a niche that matches your strengths and specialities.
- Don't water down your message. You can expand once you have a firm base of clients but not before.
- Add value and differentiate yourself.
- Think personal service, create an exciting and effective experience that fits the needs of your niche, streamline your student scheduling/payments systems with an online tutoring platform, etc
- Celebrate your uniqueness.
- Tell your story well and consistently
- Highlight what different (not just what is better).
NTP Partners & Schools Roundtable, with Jonnie Barnsley, Beatrice Vincent, George McWilliams, Sharon Cawley and Jen Fox.
- Change in perception of tutoring - now seen as a synergy service to work alongside teachers, schools and parents.
- See tutoring as a reward, not a chore.
- Tutors and teachers can work in tandem together as part of the ‘menu’ of different education options we can offer to meet all the different needs of our young people.
- Working with schools requires breaking down psychological/logistical barriers
- Putting the parent at the heart of tutoring programmes, especially in schools.
- Sharon - "It's your responsibility to get through the door the first time. It's our job to make them want to keep coming back".
- Make sure the students agree on a next step/milestone.
NTP Partners & Schools Roundtable, with Tom Hooper, James Grant, Scott Kelly, Zac Rawlinson and Vanessa Leach.
- Not all tutors have to be "qualified tutors"; would not be scalable otherwise.
- Tutors offer something different to what happens in the task, which is a good thing.
- However, you need an extra level of care if you are a tutoring service.
- Tutoring in schools is not just sending tutors in, require a lot of support.
- Feedback is incredibly important in tutoring.
- Make tutors feel part of the team, and that they belong, even if they are not employees.
- Opportunities to integrate tutoring inside the school curriculum and bridge gaps if reporting can go both ways.
- Diagnose the learning gap with students to maximise the time.
- Pedagogy is important but so is trust and how to build effective relationships.
Four Ways to Deliver Better Online Classes, with Wilim Abrook (Head of Education & Language Tutors at LearnCube)
- 1 - Plan flexible, modular sessions
- Tailor your online session to the student
- 2 - Think about how you design class materials (whitespace, text size, etc) for your virtual classroom or online learning space.
- 3 - Collaborate with your students and encourage students to solve their own problems
- Get out of a "cheaters" mindset - "Teaching our students how to use tools effectively is not cheating".
- 4 - Feel confident in troubleshooting
How to Build a Tutoring Business in an Increasingly Remote & Digital World, with Fionn Finegan from TutorCruncher
- Administration system: Cash register, security system, procurement software, one-stop-shop for all admin that would need to do.
- Get a platform that takes care of everything so the tutor can focus just on that.
- Streamline your processes
- Average microbusiness spends 15h a week on administrative systems.
- Not just about what is my business able to do now, but how will I cater for my clients in the future?
- Going after a narrow audience well is better than spending lots of money going after a wide range of clients
- Think about the value proposition that your agency is providing to your tutors as well as your clients
How to Take Your Tutoring Business Global, with Ian Manzie:
- There is lots of support for UK businesses wanting to export/expand internationally with free advice and grants available from the UK Department of International Trade: International Trade and Investment division.
- Go to the GREAT.gov.uk website.
This is not the exhaustive list of what was shared during the Love Tutoring Festival so if you attended and would like us to help us gather more, please don't hesitate to pop your bullet points into a short email to info@learncube.com with the subject line: Add Learnings to LTF Post.
Popular articles
Be notifed of our new materials!
Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur.