Emily kindly let me observe her mixed Maths/English session with Ciaran today, who is in Year 6. She started with checking his homework and asking if he had struggled with anything, while also maintaining friendly conversation with him in order to build rapport and make him feel comfortable. She then noticed that his homework task, which had been to complete a creative story had not been attempted over the week and she asked him whether he had forgotten about it. She appropriately noted to him that she would mark it down as having not been completed in his spreadsheet, which she had been keeping up on her screen so that he could view the edits she would make to it. She also told him that his homework for this week would be whatever she sets for him as well as that previous uncompleted homework, which I believe is an effective way of getting students to take responsibility for work that is fallen behind on, not allowing them a ‘way out’ of doing it. The fact that he has to complete it anyway, despite not doing it for homework teaches him that work cannot be simply ‘skipped’ and that he only increases his homework load by neglecting it. She kindly but seriously reinforced this to her student, pointing out that the missed homework was “not good”, and she pointed out the ‘Homework Rules’ which display direct consequences and would communicate the seriousness of the matter. This is an excellent way of disciplining students and instilling in them the importance of work completion that takes place outside of school and tutoring, as she also went on to explain why it is essential as it has an impact. Her words were paired with continuous encouragement as she told him that she believed he was absolutely capable of doing it. It is easy to overlook the importance of homework disciplining in favour of maintaining friendly rapport with students however it is critical to reaping results in their learning and seeing hard work come to fruition. Information learned in an hour, on one afternoon a week at tutoring can easily slip away in their minds, so homework serves to help them retain what they’ve learnt but also allows them to find areas that they struggle with and bring them into tutoring the next week. The rest of the session consisted of reading comprehension & maths, which saw Emily ask engaging and valuable questions instead of just giving her student the answers. Overall, it was an excellent session to observe, thank you Emily.

Sofala Vogt