Contents
- How do we define progress at GoStudent?
- How do our tutors ensure students make progress?
- How do tutors communicate progress to parents?
In education, progress is the advancement towards attainment, and the grasp of essential knowledge and learning transferable skills. At GoStudent we believe that progress involves so much more than this, and should also be focused on growing students’ confidence and happiness when they learn. In this final article of our review series, we’ll discuss the learning progress curve at GoStudent.
How do we define progress at GoStudent?
At GoStudent we define progress as quantitative and measurable, through attainment, grades and results, but also qualitatively in seeing a growth in confidence, happiness, and in students willing to give challenging concepts a go.
Learning goals are important, and are defined with tutors with a plan being made for how those goals can be achieved. Students can also keep track of their own progress.
One of our parents Avril says that she has "been so impressed with the tutoring that my daughter is receiving I have made sure I tell anyone who is willing to listen. Mark has been able to effectively tutor her in grade 11 math because of his style of teaching. The improvement that I have seen in her grades reinforces for me that registering her with this program has been the best investment I have made for my daughter's future."
Jenny also says that her son’s tutor "caters to them as an individual by assessing his current level of understanding and working on his areas for improvement. They teach the same topics that he is studying at school to ensure he maintains his knowledge and does not get confused."
How do our tutors ensure students make progress?
Our tutors like Olivia have a strong knowledge of the UK National Curriculum (including common attainment gaps and targets) to get to know where students’ strengths and areas for improvement lie. They tailor this knowledge to each individual student, to support them to achieve their learning goals.
As well as tailoring each session to individual students as they go along, our tutors regularly assess students’ learning to be able to share the progress curve with them and their parents.
Olivia, who worked with students aged 5-6 on Maths, English, and the 11+ examination, regularly monitored her students’ progress on a session-by-session basis. Every 6-8 weeks she would then assess her students more holistically, focusing on bigger concepts and topics, seeing what they were able to retrieve, consolidate and check for understanding.
This allowed her to identify what her students had and hadn’t learned, and to be able to go back to topics that needed more work. Unlike the busy mainstream classroom, the one-to-one virtual classroom allowed Olivia to hone in and focus on her students.
In addition to ensuring excellent progress in attainment, Olivia focused on fostering a growth mindset with her students. This was especially important for those who took up tutoring not only because they were not doing well academically, but also due to feeling that they had no confidence. Whilst this is difficult to quantify in the same way as attainment, our tutors work closely with students, their parents, and their schools, to monitor students’ confidence.
How do tutors communicate progress to parents?
Our tutors share details from sessions with parents every week, and even more holistically in a bigger report every 6-8 weeks. These are shared easily by email or by Whatsapp, which makes it really easy for parents to stay up to date with how their child is doing with their tutor.
Our parent Khalil says that he made an "excellent choice" during his introductory process, he spoke to the team, was encouraged by what he heard, and after a successful trial session, signed up for regular sessions. His advisor "took a lot of information and reviewed school reports and results so that an appropriate tutor could be identified and areas identified that may need to be focused on."
Tutors at GoStudent have a high success rate with the UK 11+ examination time and time again.
Olivia is really proud of her exam students that she’s worked with, "Inica was working towards her 11+ exam and was very driven and really wanted to get into a particular grammar school. She was incredibly motivated and I was able to work with her on some really high concepts. She passed with flying colours, getting some of the highest results in her year. The parents said that this was due to working with and being supported by me."
Want your child to make academic and personal progress in their learning? Book a free tutoring session with GoStudent today.
