Margaret and David are experienced primary and secondary school teachers who are married with two university-aged children. We have been tutoring for thirteen years. In that time we have worked with more than 100 students and changed many lives. Prior to that we had full-time careers. Here is our story:

David trained as a primary teacher and worked full-time for thirty years in schools across southern Queensland, from a large Brisbane suburban school to a one-teacher school out west. He took a few years off when the kids were little, then turned to relief teaching and private tutoring. Today, David still tutors and works almost full-time as a contract and relief teacher in high schools.

Margaret trained as a secondary teacher and worked full-time for seventeen years in state secondary and primary schools, also ranging from a large Brisbane school to a western school where she held a senior position. Today, Margaret does the occasional relief teaching, tutors and offers invaluable advice to David and the parents of his students, and otherwise follows her creative pursuits and supports the family.

David says: When we started our tutoring service most of our students were boarders at a local school. I would go there in the afternoons and evenings. Before long, day students and students from other local schools would come to our home office once or twice a week. I even had the occasional student from other towns for online tutoring. Almost all sessions were – and still are – one-on-one.

Whilst we will continue to offer one-on-one tutoring as much as we can, we want to expand opportunities to children and parents who need less-individualised, more-affordable help.  You see, many of our students have similar difficulties that could be addressed in the same way – sometimes at the same time.  There’s a big difference between working with a student who needs help with a Year 11 Humanities assignment, and a Year 4 child who is struggling with the concept of negative numbers.  The former needs individual help, whereas the latter usually only needs EXTRA help.

Not only that, most children who are having difficulties of any sort need shoring up of their basics…or even teaching of them in the first place.  This, I have found as a tutor and relief teacher in many schools, is a very common problem.  Often it is the only reason the child is struggling.

Another very common problem is confidence – or, rather, lack thereof.

These are examples of struggles shared by many, many children and young adults, yet which don’t necessarily need one-on-one tutoring.

For these reasons, and the fact that we can only do so much in a week, we are looking for ways to offer alternatives to one-on-one tutoring – ways that would suit students who need less-individualised or more-affordable help. It will probably involve an affordable membership site.

Some possibilities might include:

• Homework club where we work for a set time each day on our homework;
• Option to work on homework with other kids or ask others for help;
• Learn to set your own homework, if your school doesn’t do it, so you can leap ahead;
• Help plan your tutoring sesions;
• Group sessions teaching common areas of difficulty, e.g., multiplication;
• Tutorials for parents;
• Private FB group for discussing member problems;
• Short courses for parents;
• Webinars;
• Q & A.

DoYOU have any suggestions? Let us know!

What is your most pressing problem? Let us know that too!