It’s well known that children learn at different speeds. Some will pick things up really quickly, while others will take a little longer to grasp something. This is ok – children aren’t the same. However, if you feel your child is falling behind at school or if they need some extra support, one-to-one tuition can help supplement their learning.
What is one-to-one tuition?
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) describes one-to-one tuition as one student receiving individual and tailored support from a teacher or a tutor, rather than a fellow student. This allows a student to be given very specific, personalised sessions to improve their understanding of a topic.
In schools, children are often studying in classes ranging anywhere from 10-30 children with one teacher and perhaps a teaching assistant. One-to-one tuition can be suitable for students who need individual assistance with specific subjects or need an intensive burst of extra support.
Is one-to-one tutoring effective?
The simple answer is yes. Research conducted by the EEF has found that one-to-one tutoring can be effective and improve student’s progress about by about five months on average. The important consideration of one-to-one tutoring is not only about how much tuition a person receives, but also the quality of that tuition.
The optimum impact from one-to-one tutoring has been observed to come from short, regular sessions over an established time period. This timing allows students to comprehend concepts without becoming overwhelmed. It was also suggested that the quality of teaching has a large impact on how effective tutoring can end up being. This is particularly true for when tuition is done in small groups rather than on an individual basis.
When investigating programmes that had volunteers tutor or teaching assistants running sessions, the tuition offered to students was found to be beneficial. However, the effectiveness was not always at useful as tuition from professionally trained teachers with experience of teaching. For these programmes, tutoring can be more effective if the volunteers or teaching assistants receive training and use a pre-planned schedule of learning.
The EEF evidence also highlighted that it's important that tutoring is in addition to teaching. This means the most effective tuition occurs when students learn content that compliments what they will learn at school or in their regular classes. This allows tutoring to facilitate learning rather than hindering it and enables the students to progress.
This evidence comes from recent reports from the EEF as well as research from leading educational and teaching services in the UK including Catch Up Numeracy, Catch Up Literacy, REACH, and Switch-on Reading. The results obtained are coherent in demonstrating that one-to-one tutoring can be very effective, especially for younger children.
4 points to consider before deciding on one-to one-tuition
If you are thinking about one-to-one tutoring, here are some things to consider:
- One-to-one tutoring helps a student to catch up in their studies and flourish
- The impact from tuition comes when it is done in addition to regular classes taken by a student and that the topics covered follow a complementary curriculum
- How much would you like to spend on tuition?
- It is important that students feel supported by tutoring sessions and that a good rapport is established with the pupil / tutor
If you want to know more about one to one tuition, please get in touch via my bloss bio.
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