In the world of tutoring, the relationship between a tutor and a student plays a crucial role in fostering academic success. While knowledge and teaching strategies are essential, it is the connection built between tutor and student that often has the greatest impact on a student’s progress. Strong tutor-student relationships create an environment where trust, respect, and motivation flourish, ultimately improving the student’s confidence and learning outcomes.

One of the key benefits of a positive relationship is that it allows students to feel comfortable asking questions, expressing confusion, and admitting when they don’t understand something. When students feel safe in their learning environment, they are more likely to engage fully and take risks in their learning. This openness also allows tutors to identify areas where students are struggling and tailor their lessons to meet individual needs.

A strong relationship also fosters motivation. When students feel supported and understood, they are more likely to stay committed to their studies, even when the material becomes challenging. Tutors who take the time to understand their student’s interests, learning style, and personal challenges can better motivate them by incorporating relevant examples or adjusting lesson pace and content to keep the student engaged.

Furthermore, positive relationships build student confidence. When tutors consistently praise effort and progress, rather than just focusing on grades or outcomes, students begin to believe in their own abilities. This shift in mindset can be incredibly powerful, as it encourages students to take ownership of their learning and persevere through difficulties.

In tutoring, building a strong relationship is not just about helping students with their homework, it’s about creating an environment where students feel respected, valued, and empowered. By investing in these relationships, tutors can support students in their academic journey, helping them achieve not only academic success but also personal growth and confidence.

Demetria Koutavas

Tutoring is often seen as a way to improve academic performance, but its impact goes far beyond better grades. One of the most valuable outcomes of tutoring is the confidence it builds in students—sometimes more important than just teaching the subject itself.

Confidence is the foundation for learning. A student who believes in their ability to succeed is far more likely to engage with their studies, take risks, and persevere through challenges. I’ve noticed this firsthand in my tutoring experiences. At the start, some students hesitate to answer questions, afraid of getting them wrong. Over time, as they receive encouragement, tailored explanations, and a safe space to make mistakes, they begin to take ownership of their learning.

One memorable example was a student struggling with English essay writing. Initially, they were reluctant to share ideas, convinced they “weren’t good at writing.” Rather than just drilling them on structure and techniques, I focused on building their confidence—praising insightful thoughts, breaking tasks into manageable steps, and showing them that their ideas had value. A few weeks later, they started speaking up more, tackling essays with less hesitation. Seeing them go from avoiding writing to taking pride in their work was a reminder that confidence can be the key to unlocking potential.

While academic success is important, tutoring should also empower students to believe in themselves. When a student gains confidence, their growth extends beyond the classroom—they develop resilience, independence, and a mindset that will serve them in all areas of life. That’s why tutoring isn’t just about schoolwork; it’s about fostering self-belief that lasts far beyond the final exam.

Shyla Gloster

Today I’ve learned some valuable things that I will integrate into my tutoring from now on. The main take away for me was a strategy of suggesting alternate ways to look at something such as a graph, like asking what it would be like if the gradient of a line was negative. This ensures they fully understand the maths. Another strategy includes asking the student questions about steps towards the answer is a way to make them think about it. Asking “right?” at the end makes them confirm the approach, making the process more memorable via confirmation. Trying to be specific about what the student struggles with is also important in order to identify a topics to target and how to reassure them that they can progress forward. Although they’re available, I don’t often use whiteboards, but reflecting on how it’s clearly helpful, I shall be using them more often. Whiteboards help students visualise the maths problem and thus enables them to make connections faster. They’re also great for flexibility because mistakes can be erased and fixed easily, without the discouragement of crossing something out. Checking in with them about understanding helps the tutor know what their student understands. Another tutoring strategy that stuck out to me, was showing students alternate ways to write out an expression in maths, which can help them see different ways of solving the problem, or make it easier for them by phrasing the question in a way that makes sense for them. Something that I think is applicable across primary and high school, is the outlining of what form the answer needs to be in. For example, if it’s a multiple choice question, and the answer needs to be negative, then it can’t be a positive option. This process of elimination increases answering speed and teaches students what they need to look for in a question.

Leela Money

Today I had the pleasure of observing Demi with her Year 7 Maths student Aleks in which they worked on reinforcing key mathematical concepts, while addressing gaps in his Year 6 knowledge. The lesson focused on worded problems, converting mixed fractions to improper fractions, adjacent angles, NAPLAN overview and the angles of triangles. Demi employed a range of strategies to engage Aleks and enhance his understanding, using both digital and physical resources to create an interactive and dynamic learning environment.

To introduce the topic of fractions, Demi broke the process down into clear, manageable steps, ensuring Aleks grasped each stage before moving on. She used her laptop to display visual representations, helping to bridge the conceptual gap between mixed and improper fractions. To solidify understanding, she encouraged Aleks to explain his reasoning aloud, reinforcing the “learning by teaching” method.

A particularly effective aspect of her lesson was the use of the whiteboard as a collaborative tool. Rather than simply explaining concepts, Demi actively involved Aleks by having both of them stand up and solve problems together. This hands-on approach made the learning process feel more engaging and participatory rather than passive. She modelled problem-solving strategies first, then encouraged Aleks to replicate and adapt them, fostering his confidence and independence in tackling complex questions.

When exploring adjacent angles and triangle properties, Demi integrated questioning techniques that prompted deeper thinking. Instead of providing immediate answers, she guided Aleks through the reasoning process, helping him connect prior knowledge with new concepts. Her patient and supportive demeanour ensured that mistakes were viewed as learning opportunities rather than setbacks.

Overall, Demi’s lesson was a strong example of interactive and student centered teaching. Her ability to seamlessly blend direct instruction with inquiry-based learning techniques created a supportive and stimulating environment, ensuring Aleks remained engaged and actively involved in his own learning process.

Briana Vaz

Hey everyone! Today, I had the opportunity to observe Kassandra tutor her Year 10 maths student. Throughout the session, her use of visual diagrams on the whiteboard and written working out assisted her student in understanding complex mathematical concepts, including trigonometry and algebra. There was a big focus on angles of elevation and depression, as well as bearings, with the goal of her student being able to independently draw out worded questions. Kassandra provided her student with helpful revision worksheets and practice questions from multiple textbooks, which enabled her student to answer a wide range of different-styled questions.

After some revision, Kassandra asked her student to specify which other areas she had confusion with, thus allowing her to gather the relevant resources and work through sample questions collaboratively. Her clear voice when explaining important working out supported her student towards better understanding. Here, I also learnt the importance of displaying working out in different coloured markers for enhanced student comprehension.

As a result, her student was able to maintain her focus throughout the session. I saw this as a positive sign of engagement and an eagerness to learn (e.g. how to complete difficult questions), which was established through Kassandra’s encouraging tone and comfortable nature. Something that I loved about her teaching approach was that she provided her student enough time to work through the questions, rather than simply giving the answer. Kassandra also knew when to provide assistance to her student, obviously when required. By adopting these practices, as tutors, we are allowing our students to make mistakes along the way — which in unpopular opinion, is actually good — emphasising a need for constant learning and development. That’s what we are here for… to support our students in improving their understanding and addressing their individual needs, through the use of tailored resources.

Kaelyn Tan

One of the most rewarding parts of tutoring primary school students is helping them learn how to structure their thoughts in writing. Writing isn’t just about putting words on a page — it’s about organising ideas in a way that makes sense and, for young learners, this doesn’t always come naturally.

The challenge starts with how kids see writing. Many think of it as just filling up space or lines on a page of homework, without much thought about how sentences connect, how one idea should lead to another, or how it would feel like to be the reader digesting all this information. They might first write that the main character is a little girl with brown hair and blue eyes, then jump straight to a dragon that, inexplicably, she has been tasked with fighting. So sometimes the first step to writing logically is to teach them to think logically.

One of my favourite ways of achieving this is a visual aid. When students struggle with storytelling, laying out a simple outline of beginning, middle, and end, with setting and character running underneath the entire time, often leads to that “click” moment.
Beyond structure, it’s also crucial important to build confidence in young writers, since so many students hesitate to write because they’re just afraid of making mistakes, of seeming dumb, and of not living up to expectations. They worry about spelling, grammar, or whether their ideas are “good enough” or “smart enough”. But content always matters more than perfection, particularly in the beginning, like how a page of unstructured, misspelled writing is still always better than an empty page.
Exposure, patience, and practice come next (along with hopefully a lot of reading!). Younger students typically need a lot of time to absorb the fundamental concepts of articulation. Repetition isn’t a setback or a road bump, it’s pretty much the entire learning process, with the same lesson or technique often requiring multiple methods of teaching and examples before it really sticks. This means that we should always approach writing with a mindset geared towards each student’s individual pace, and remember to be appreciative of the small wins, like when a student remembers to use paragraphs for the first time.

Ultimately, writing isn’t just an academic skill relegated to a homework book — it’s a way of thinking and making sense of the world which can help students of all ages to find their voice.

Mica Krzyzanowski

For many students, math itself isn’t daunting—it’s the words. Word problems add an extra layer of complexity, requiring students to translate language into equations before they even start solving. This can be frustrating, especially for students who are confident in their calculations but struggle to understand what the question is asking in the first place.

So, what makes word problems tricky?

1. Too Much Information at Once.
Unlike straightforward equations, word problems present information in a non-linear way, which can be overwhelming.

2. Ambiguous wording.
Some students trip up on the phrasing of the problem rather than the math itself.

3. Lack of a Strategy
Many students dive straight into calculations without taking the time to analyse what’s being asked.

How can we get better at word problems, then? To put it simply, working out!

1.Breaking it down step by step: Pause before jumping to your calculator. Read the question, and then try and reword it so it makes sense to your brain. Everyone’s approach will be different!

2. Look out for specific language: ‘total’ means addition, ‘difference’ means subtraction. Being able to recognise this immediately will help you being to scaffold the equation!

3. Draw a diagram! It goes without saying that if you’re doing a real-world trig question, drawing a diagram makes your life INFINTELY easier!!!

4. Finally, practise! We only get better through time and hard work.

Sophie McGrath

I had the opportunity to observe Thomas and his Year 9 Maths student who were working on simple interest. Throughout the session there were a range of things he implemented contributed to the session running effectively.

Firstly, his incorporation of visuals and constant feedback. This allowed for the student to improve his understanding of the content while also making complex problems seem less intimidating. This was very visibly effective, creating a comfortable atmosphere and making the student feel more relaxed and at ease.

Additionally, his tone of voice and disciplinary character. Despite being consistently calm and friendly, Thomas remained strict in expressing his goals for the student during the session. By providing explicit instructions for his student he allowed for the most coherent and successful completion of content. This was a critical element that contributed to the productive nature of the session.

Finally, his communication and patience were something unique that elevated the quality of this session. Irrespective of the whether his student may have made mistakes, Thomas continued to be reassuring and supportive. This ensured that he remained motivated and constant in his efforts throughout the entirety of the session.

Katerina Vrahnos

Boosting student confidence during tutoring is essential for fostering a positive learning experience. Some of the ways I try to boost confidence in my students is:
1. Create a Safe Learning Environment
Establishing a welcoming and non-judgmental space allows students to feel safe when learning making them more likely to ask questions when they don’t understand something instead of letting it fall to the wayside. One way to introduce this safety is to build a friendly relationship with each individual student and to encourage their efforts, even if the answer they get is wrong.
2. Celebrate Small Wins
Students often feel more confident when they see progress, no matter how small. Celebrate each step of improvement, whether it’s solving a problem correctly or grasping a difficult concept. Positive reinforcement can help boost their self-esteem and motivate them to continue working hard.
3. Set Achievable Goals
Helping students set realistic, short-term goals that are attainable. Breaking down larger concepts into smaller, manageable tasks can prevent students from feeling overwhelmed and allows them to experience success more frequently. Achieving these small goals creates a sense of accomplishment and reinforces the idea that they are capable.
4. Encourage Self-Reflection
Ask students to reflect on what they’ve learned after each session. This encourages students to recognize their own progress, which helps boost their self-confidence. It also reinforces a growth mindset, where they see their abilities as something they can improve with effort.
5. Provide Constructive Feedback
While it’s important to praise effort, constructive feedback also plays a crucial role. Framing feedback in a way that is encouraging helps students see challenges as temporary and solvable.
By combining these approaches, tutoring sessions can become a space where students not only improve academically but also develop the confidence they need to succeed.

Riva Burkett

Tutoring plays a crucial role in supporting students who are either falling behind or excelling beyond their grade level in school. For children who struggle academically, personalised tutoring can be the bridge that helps them regain confidence and mastery over challenging subjects. A tutor works one-on-one with the student, providing tailored lessons that address specific gaps in understanding. This focused attention allows students to progress at their own pace, without the pressure of keeping up with the class, leading to improved academic performance and better self-esteem.

On the other hand, tutoring is just as valuable for students who are ahead of their peers. These students often feel unchallenged in the classroom, which can lead to boredom, disengagement, and even underachievement. A tutor can introduce more advanced concepts, encourage critical thinking, and engage the student with material that sparks curiosity. By nurturing their talents, tutoring helps ensure these students remain motivated and continue to grow intellectually, keeping them excited about learning.

Additionally, tutoring for both groups of students offers an opportunity for individualised attention that is often lacking in larger classrooms. Teachers, due to time constraints and large class sizes, may not be able to address the unique needs of every student. A tutor, however, can cater lessons to the child’s strengths and weaknesses, providing a more effective and personalised educational experience.
Ultimately, tutoring fosters a love for learning, whether it’s helping a student catch up or encouraging a student to go beyond what’s expected. By meeting each child where they are, tutoring ensures that every student receives the support and challenge they need to thrive academically.

Shyla Gloster