Education matters

During the last week of term I often have to sit and talk with parents about the progress their children have made throughout the year. 

When I begin discussions with parents regarding a poor performance I’m no longer surprised to hear the phrase: ‘But I’ve been sending them to a tutor all year’ because unbelievably, I’ve heard it so often.

Sadly, this is more common than you might think and it demonstrates a significant problem on the island. The issue can be split into two main points:

1) Parents are informed that their children may need a little extra help at home by their child’s teacher and as a result, more often than not, of lacking confidence regarding helping their child with schoolwork, will pay a tutor to help them.

2) Teachers recognising that there is an easy dinar or two to be made through their teacher status and not happy with the salaries they earn, will jump at the chance should they be offered.

Further problems with these two scenarios then unfold because, parents don’t know enough about teaching and learning to help and so the new tutor can teach what they want and not actually what the child needs, principally because they are often unskilled in effective assessment and will go on second-hand information relayed by the child’s teacher to the parent.

Now, to make matters worse, occasionally teachers from the child’s own class offer tutoring to parents on the QT and to ensure that they can justify the extra money the parent is paying for their services and that they get repeat business, teach them what is going to be on the exams.

Personally, I only believe tutoring is necessary if a student has fallen far behind in their learning and even then I only truly trust in organised methodologies such as Kumon that start with a baseline assessment and work from there using regular assessment to measure progress. 

Tutoring should also be a communicative exercise in which tutor, parent and teacher maintain regular contact to ensure the same messages are getting across and the student’s needs are being addressed.

Parents should remember that:

- Tutoring is not a quick fix, nor does it exonerate them from their responsibilities to help their children to make progress and learn to enjoy school, no matter how busy they are.

- Tutors are not always what they claim to be and in my experience on the island often teach incorrectly, have poor English language skills or confuse children by teaching contrasting skills or strategies.

- Having your child’s class teacher tutor your child is a terrible idea since the results they receive from exams and other assessments are questionable. A teacher who offers to do this, is in my eyes, a dishonourable person.

So, as we enter the summer holidays and tutors on the island begin to rub their hands in glee at all the questionable money they can make, I urge them to think like professional teachers and not business people and to consider the impact of what they are doing to children and families who know no different.

To those parents among you who might be tempted to take on a tutor for your child over the summer holidays, I urge you to consider whether your child actually needs one at all and what you can do to help yourself.

Above all else though, I implore parents to check the qualifications and references of your chosen tutor and VERY IMPORTANTLY ask them how they will assess your child’s learning needs and learning progress.

If they can’t answer those questions then say ‘thank you very much’, bid them farewell and walk straight out of the door before your child learns nothing at great expense to you.

If you need any help regarding this subject matter, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.