Today I observed Shyla Gloster teaching Mia’s Year 5 maths/english lesson. It was a highly engaging and educational lesson ! From the start it was clear that Shyla had built a strong, positive relationship with the student which helped her create a supportive environment.

Shyla was incredibly responsive and observant to the students’ needs. I’ve noticed that Shyla has tutored this student for a while as she was able to pick up on subtle moments of hesitation or confusion and adapted her approach to accommodate the student. At one point, when the student struggled with a maths question, she reworded her explanation and guided the student through it without ever making Mia feel rushed or self-conscious about her answers. The sense of encouragement she provided was clearly genuine to the student, which I think was enhanced by the sense of familiarity that Shyla had established with Mia over the time she has been tutoring her.

What really impressed me was the way Shyla maintained the student’s engagement throughout the entire session, especially tutoring a young student. She used a variety of strategies to keep the lesson dynamic so the student remained engaged. This included mixing direct instructions with open-ended questions, and also dedicating time for the student to complete questions on her own to build Mia’s confidence. It was clear that Shyla was able to create a thoughtfully planned lesson from the start, but was adaptive enough to change it when the student demonstrated confusion, which I thought was very impressive !

Great job !

Annaliese Lakis