As we move closer to the the beginning of the new school year I keep thinking about ways in which we can inspire our students to gain a love of learning. I guess that’s a little bit of a cliche, but I truly believe that education must become an act of passion to be successful.

As a tutor who works to see improved outcomes in children’s skills and grades at school, I believe this must start with happy learners. Does the child feel comfortable with me as a visitor in their home? Did the child want their precious time invaded with more school like banter and activities?
First and foremost, as a tutor, it is my role to make a child believe with all their heart, that tutoring is going to be one of the most important steps in their life’s journey. Somewhere along the line things just stopped moving forward and it is my job, as a tutor, to switch that light bulb back on, ever so dimly at first, and assist them to see that together we can form a little team to make the light shine brighter each week.

As I go off to tutor, I won’t be slapping a pile of worksheets on the table for my student to plough through. I won’t be worried about standardised tests or what reading level my students are on right now. We will talk a while about the holidays and what great things they have done and what ideas have they been creating in their thoughts about the coming year ? We will create a mind map of ideas, set some realistic and exciting goals on one of my goal setting grids, find out what they need to discover about their own learning and then maybe do a bit of a recap on what we were doing last year.

Most importantly their mind map and goal setting grid will be a visual stimulus to look at during the week to remind them that I am mostly certainly here to work with them to help improve their grades, but most importantly to learn who they are, how they learn best and how we will work together to tick off one goal at a time as they are ready to move to the next step in their learning journey.

It is all about the stuff that starts to whet their appetite to begin to dream and say “I can do this.” When I go and see my students next week I will greet them with a huge smile. I have missed seeing them and know I will leave with a bigger smile as I watch them resume to create the person they were born to be.