First Education

In today’s fast-paced education system, many students feel overwhelmed by the pressure to perform, the pace of classroom teaching, and the challenge of balancing schoolwork with personal commitments. As a tutor, I’ve seen firsthand how consistent, personalised support can transform a student’s confidence, skills, and long-term academic outcomes. Tutoring is no longer just about “helping with homework”—it’s about equipping students with the mindset and strategies they need to become independent, capable learners.

One of the greatest advantages of tutoring is the opportunity for targeted, individualised instruction. In a typical classroom, teachers do their best to meet the needs of every learner, but it’s not always possible to slow down, revisit a concept several times, or provide one-on-one feedback for every student. Tutoring fills this gap. By identifying misunderstood concepts early and explaining them in accessible, student-friendly ways, tutors help build a strong foundation that prevents frustration later on. This personalised attention also allows students to ask questions freely, without the fear of judgement or falling behind.

Another powerful aspect of tutoring is the development of essential study habits. Students often struggle not because they lack intelligence, but because they haven’t yet mastered effective strategies such as planning assessments, breaking down complex tasks, revising consistently, or writing with clarity and structure. Through regular sessions, tutors guide students in building these habits, turning what once felt difficult or overwhelming into manageable, repeatable steps.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of tutoring, however, is witnessing the growth in a student’s confidence. When students start to understand their strengths, recognise their improvement, and feel supported, their motivation naturally rises. Success becomes something within reach—not just academically, but personally.

Ultimately, high-quality tutoring is about empowering students. It nurtures curiosity, strengthens resilience, and helps young people discover their potential both inside and outside the classroom. And when learning feels meaningful and achievable, everything else begins to fall into place.

Carmen Yuen

For years, students have been told that the best way to study is to find a silent room, sit still and “focus”. But what if complete silence isn’t the ideal learning environment after all? Surprisingly, a bit of background noice, done the right way can actually boost concentration, creativity and information retention.

Researchers studying cognitive performance have found that moderate ambient noise, such as a café chatter or soft environmental sounds, can stimulate the brain just enough to keep it alert. Too much silence can sometimes have the opposite effect, allowing the mind to wander or become sleepy, especially during long revision sessions.

This idea challenges the traditional image of studying. A student working in a quiet library might assume they’re being productive simply because the environment looks studious. But a gentle hum of background sound can create what psychologists call “low level distractions”, which nudges the brain into a more alert, engaged state. It works a bit like standing on one leg, your body has to stay slightly active to maintain balance.

For tutors, introducing this concept can be surprisingly helpful. Encouraging students to test different learning environments, such as soft café sounds, rainfall audio or instrumental music, can help them discover what keeps their mind energised. It becomes a form of self discovery, what does your brain respond to best? What environment keeps you awake, curious and mentally active?

Of course, this isn’t about blasting pop music or working in a noisy room. It’s about finding that sweet balance where a steady, gentle background sound provides just enough stimulation without overwhelming the senses. When students strike that balance, revision can feel less rigid and more natural.

Instead of forcing silence, students can shape a study environment that supports their concentration style. Sometimes, the secret to sharper focus isn’t a quieter room, it’s the soft, comforting sound of a rainy afternoon or the distant clinking of coffee cups.

Isabella Naumovski

The end of the year is always an exciting time, particularly for students who excitedly wait for Christmas and the holidays to come around, but it is also a time when students begin to lack motivation and when the exhaustion of the year sets in. Making the lessons memorable and exciting is crucial in this period, especially when effort in the sessions and homework gradually becomes minimal. Before hosting a termly meeting at the Earlwood centre, I thought long and hard about how we as tutors could bring excitement into the session while prioritising the academic challenges our students face. I thought about all of the times I had seen memes and funny videos, and pictures online describing the content I had learnt at university and comparing it to real-life scenarios, which had helped me to remember the content I had struggled with even after my exams. Then I began to consider how many students use the media and technology and how they typically talk about what’s trending online in our sessions. I started to get creative and considered making numerous memes that included characters like Batman or commonly seen memes on the internet to remind students of concepts they had struggled with throughout the year by writing the reminders on the memes/pictures. I presented this idea at the meeting and hoped for more suggestions, and the magnificent group of tutors at Earlwood suggested many ideas, such as coming up with a rap they could work on with their student, creating an essay soup with the essay components as the ingredients, rhyming, and funny acronyms. These ideas came from tutors who teach an array of subjects and can apply to any subject. Overall, creativity is proven crucial to ensuring student engagement, especially with the end of the year approaching and fatigue being high.

Marina Nouris

Big tasks can feel intimidating for students, especially when they are juggling multiple subjects and deadlines. Whether it is a research assignment, a creative project or a block of exam revision, the size of the task often feels harder than the task itself. The good news is that overwhelm can be reduced by learning how to break work into smaller, manageable steps that make progress feel achievable.

The first step is to understand the task clearly. Students often feel stressed because they are unsure where to begin. Reading instructions carefully, highlighting key requirements and identifying the final outcome helps create certainty. Once the goal is clear, it becomes easier to map out the actions needed to reach it.

Next, the task should be divided into logical parts. A history assignment, for example, can be separated into research, note-taking, paragraph planning and writing. Exam preparation can be split into topics, question types and practice sessions. Each part becomes a smaller task that feels less overwhelming than facing the entire thing at once.

Timing also matters. Setting short, focused work sessions helps students make steady progress without feeling drained. Even fifteen to twenty minutes of focused effort can move a project forward. When students experience small wins regularly, motivation increases and the task feels more manageable.

It is also important to prioritise. Not every step requires the same amount of time or energy. Students should tackle the most challenging or important part first while their mind is fresh. This builds momentum and reduces the temptation to procrastinate.

Finally, checking off each completed step provides a sense of progress. Visual reminders such as lists or calendars help students see how far they have come and what remains. This reduces stress and builds confidence.

Large tasks lose their power when broken into smaller steps. With clear planning and steady effort, students can replace overwhelm with control and complete their work with confidence.

Freddie Le Vay

A signifcant principle in learning and development, Inclusive Edcuation (IE), recognises the interplay of social experience and cultural background in the sahping of learner’s unique strengths and limaitions. Drawing on inclusive practcies in the classroom shifts the foucs from this limited, discriminative idea of ‘ability’ and rather a braoder understanding of student development and education. This is of great importance, specifically as many students seek tutoring because they have felt ignored or misundertsood in traditional classroom enviornments, not only for academic assistance. An inclusive tutor is someone who makes effort to observe and note these barriers while actively acting to progressively remove them.

One of the most critical aspects fo inclusive education is the atmoshpere that is created, with students often learning better in an enviornment where they feel safe and comfortable to answer questions, make mistakes and reattempt difficult concepts without any hate or judgement. An educator who understands this prioritises explicit instruction as a powerful strategy to faciliate the develpment of a strong tutor-student relationship while still establishing clear learning goals. This is especially benficial to students with additional elarning needs, who often suffer from anxiety and confidence issues.

Inlcusive approahces are additionally useful in improving the quality of instruction itself as rather than treating tutoring as a one-size fits all approach, educators who undertsand and prioritise inclusion alternate their methods. Whether this be rotating between guided practice, verbal explanation/discussion or visuals, learners specific needs are not only suppported but there undertsanding of the taught concepts is strengthened. By embracing diveristy and adapting instructuon accordingly, educators can assist students to develop independence, grow their confidence and feel a snese of belonging.

Katerina Vrahnos

As a tutor, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern. Bright, curious students especially around Year 7 suddenly hit a wall with mathematics. They start to pull back, and before long, the familiar line appears: “I’m just bad at math.” But most of the time, the issue isn’t the student. It’s the widening gap between how the syllabus teaches math and how young minds actually learn.

The curriculum, in its pursuit of academic rigor, often pushes students into abstraction too early. Take algebra, for instance. The syllabus might jump straight to equations like 2x+5=15. For a 12-year-old, that random letter ‘x’ feels foreign a symbol with no story, no emotional or logical hook. They’re told to follow steps and manipulate symbols they don’t yet understand, and when it doesn’t make sense, they assume it’s because they aren’t good at it. But really, it’s a failure to connect the concept to something that feels real.

So, what if we flipped it? What if, before introducing the letter ‘x’, we started with a story something tangible? “I’ve got two identical mystery bags of lollies. My friend gives me five more, and now I’ve got fifteen in total. How many lollies are in each bag?” Every student can relate to that. They can reason it out: “Before the five extras, there were ten. Two identical bags, so five in each.” Then comes the magic moment: “You just did algebra. That mystery bag? That’s what we call ‘x’.”

Now the abstract symbol has meaning. It’s not some random rule it’s a language for describing something they already understand. The syllabus too often presents math as a finished product tidy, polished, and disconnected. Our job as educators is to reverse-engineer it. Start with the real, the concrete, the intuitive. When students can see math as a way to make sense of their world, they stop fearing it and start owning it.

Edward

Marina worked on multiplication practice with her Year 6 student, ensuring they had opportunities to revise strategies and apply them to a range of problems. After completing the maths component, they continued with English, focusing on persuasive writing. Marina broke down the planning steps clearly and modelled how to draft the text, guiding the student through organising ideas and strengthening their arguments. She thoroughly explained the structure of effective persuasive paragraphs and discussed the importance of using more complex vocabulary to enhance the writing. Throughout the drafting process, Marina also addressed spelling, as the student made a few errors. She reviewed and corrected these words carefully, using each mistake as an additional practice opportunity. This approach helped reinforce accuracy while supporting the student’s overall writing development.

Razan Rustom

Tutoring is one of those rare roles where the impact often unfolds quietly, yet meaningfully, over time. As a tutor, I’ve come to realise that my work isn’t just about explaining formulas, refining essays, or preparing students for exams, it’s about meeting them exactly where they are, and helping them take confident steps forward. The joy I find in tutoring comes from witnessing these transformations up close, even in the smallest moments.

There’s something incredibly rewarding about seeing a student’s expression shift from confusion to clarity. It’s not just academic understanding they gain, it’s belief in their own abilities. When a student who once hesitated to answer questions begins to contribute ideas confidently, or when a shy writer finally shares a paragraph they’re proud of, I’m reminded that tutoring is as much about building confidence as it is about building skills.

What continually inspires me is how deeply personal the learning journey is for each student. Every session offers a chance to tailor explanations, reframe concepts, and encourage reflection. No two students think the same way, and that challenge and privilege pushes me to become more empathetic, patient, and creative. I get to witness growth not only in my students but in myself.

The most meaningful moments often come unexpectedly: when a parent tells me their child is excited about a subject for the first time, or when a student messages after an exam to say, “I finally understood it.” These moments reaffirm why I do what I do. They remind me that even small improvements can change a student’s relationship with learning.

At its heart, tutoring is about connection and empowerment. It’s about standing beside students as they discover that they are capable of much more than they thought. And for me, there is no greater joy than watching them step into that confidence—one lesson at a time.

Kassandra Pegios

Today I was able to observe Daniella tutoring two year six students in maths. Throughout the lesson she was able to engage the two students and unpack these topics with them thoroughly.

Daniella began the lesson by outlining some general definitions of area and perimeter, assessing the students’ prior understanding level and creating a baseline which they were able to work off in the lesson. Starting with learning about perimeter, Daniella engaged the students by drawing shapes on the whiteboard, asking them to find the perimeter of these shapes. This was a clever way to engage the students and gave them opportunities to express their confusion.

Then moving onto area, the tutor began by introducing some key abbreviations, terms and formulas, such as the classic area of a triangle formula. These were important to canvas before they could be applied. After teaching these to the students, they were able to move onto solving area questions that applied this knowledge. Daniella wrote questions on the whiteboard specifically tailored to meet and slightly extend the knowledge level of the students, allowing them to be challenged and learn without getting lost.

The final topic they tackled was volume, again by introducing the topic in plain terms before introducing formulae, then finally, introducing questions to solve.

As a fellow tutor, I noticed several very effective aspects to Daniella’s tutoring approach. For example, she always made sure to start with concrete examples before moving to formulas. In maths, formulas can often seem nebulous or abstract, so this was an effective technique to make sure the students knew what they were learning.

She also encouraged the students to verbalise their reasoning to strengthen understanding. The tutoring session was highly engaging and communicative and this allowed the students to explain solutions in their own words. This is a powerful teaching technique as it solidifies concepts in a student’s own mind and also allows their tutors to assess their level of understanding.

She also used questioning strategically, asking the students questions that challenged them, but that they were ultimately able to tackle and solve. This was an effective technique to promote independence and critical thinking in the students, equipping them with the skills to continue to solve perimeter and area questions without dependence on a tutor.

Ceara Kearnes

In one of my sessions this week, I wanted to write a paragraph with my year 2 student. At the start of each session, I like to spend time getting to know the student. This week I learnt that he liked playing basketball and piano. I believe it is important for students to write about topics that are interesting to them, so I asked if he wanted to write about why he likes basketball. He said no, so I said, ‘what about piano?” – no again. Then something clicked for me, I wouldn’t want to write about that either, how boring! He has probably written and spoken about that same thing plenty of times before. So instead, I asked him if he believes unicorns a real. Then I could see some emotion. “No!” he said immediately. I asked him why and he gave several reasons to support his case:
– If they were real why had he never seen one
– He has been told that they live amongst the clouds, but the clouds are made of air, so there is no way for the unicorns to stay up there.
– Unicorns are colourful so you would be able to see them from far distances
No matter what his arguments were, what I liked about this question, was that he had a clear opinion that he WANTED to write about. I aided this by challenging him slightly “Well I believe they are real, what makes you say they aren’t”. Then all he had to do was write it down.
A topic like this may not be something that he generally gets the chance to write about, and it was also such a random question that he seemed genuinely excited to share his opinion.

Riva Burkett