Best Practice for Tutors

Introduce yourself

There’s no real set format for this but the key things are that the student(s) know who you are and can check that they are in the right place. Also, it’s nice for the student(s) to have some idea what to call you – which is obviously your choice. As the tutorials are frequently 1-to-1 and are never more than 6 students, you can, if you wish, be on first name terms. It is worth noting that GCSE aged students won’t necessarily be comfortable with this. I used to introduce myself as Nick Strugnell and say they can call me Nick or Mr. Strugnell or Sir – I don’t particularly want to be called Sir but appreciate that Strugnell isn’t the easiest of surnames and they might not be comfortable on first name terms. Giving options is never a bad idea.

You can, if you wish, give a super short CV. For example: “I have a doctorate in Chemistry and have been teaching for 22 years”. Please do consider if it’s useful: “I am currently studying for my D.Phil in Minkowski spacetime and Quantum Harmonic Oscillations with Prof Ignac Fogelmann” – all a student will hear is that you are still at university.

Getting to know your student

Beyond just checking that you have the right students in your groups and that they are in the correct class (i.e. they are expecting to study “History GCSE AQA Paper 2AA Britain Health and the people c1000 to the present day” or whatever), it is good to get to know them a little.

Obviously tutors generally only see students for a short amount of time, usually just a few hours, so this needs to be a short process (a few minutes).

It’s nice to ask them what they want to be called, are they a William, Will or Bill?

It can be very useful, particularly at A level, to know what other subjects they are studying. For example, if you are teaching A level Statistics in Maths to a student who is also doing Psychology and Biology, you can link the statistics you are covering to areas in both their other A levels. For A level Physics, it is very useful to know if they are also doing A level Maths; if not, you will need a very slightly different approach.

For 1-to-1, you can ask a student what grade they are hoping for. With a group maybe do this anonymously – e.g. ask them to write it on a scrap of paper.  Some students may not be comfortable sharing this, especially if the other students in the group are working towards a higher level.  Be mindful also that some classes are split by level, e.g. Higher or Foundation for GCSE/IGCSE, Higher or Standard for IB.

For A level and IB students it may be worth asking what they wish to study at university. You might adopt a different approach, for example, with an A level Maths student who wants to study Maths at university compared to one who needs to get a good grade to become a vet.

You won’t have time to get lots of details, but quick details can be really helpful and insightful.

Nice phrases to use

There are certain phrases which I heard during my last set of observations that I think really set the right tone.

“If I go too quick, ask me to slow down” – gives the student(s) permission to set the pace without feeling that it’s their fault – note that it’s “if I go too quick” rather than “if you can’t keep up”.

“This is a really tough question…” – allows the student(s) to firstly take their time and secondly not feel bad about not being able to do it.

“Just let us focus” – very simple but pulls the student back on topic without blaming. Compare to “you need to stay on topic”. One student in a session I was observing had ADHD and probably had been told hundreds of times to focus.

“Perhaps you could help me” – suggests a collaboration in solving the problem/answering the question.

“True, but…” – can be used if a student makes a true statement but doesn’t quite answer the question.

“Do you remember…” – basically referring back to an earlier tutorial, has the upside that you can check to see if they do remember and, if they do remember, then the repetition will help cement it in longer term memory.

“If you are an examiner…” – it’s useful for students to try to see things from the examiner’s point of view – obviously this does need to be backed up by knowledge of mark schemes and examiners reports.

Interesting facts, asides and statements of the obvious

This is a tricky thing to get right. In terms of engaging the student(s) little factoids not related directly to the syllabus can help. They need to be used sparingly, so as to not get off topic or take up too much time.

Although I am fairly sure that no Biology syllabus requires you to know that there are roughly 37.5 trillion cells in a typical adult male, it is an extraordinary fact! It puts the bewildering level of cellular activity into some numerical context.

On the statement of the obvious fact front, pointing out that when you draw a cell on a whiteboard that, in reality, it is a 3-D sphere rather than a 2-D circle. Obvious, but it may be something that the student simply hadn’t thought of.

Adding in a bit of context/history relating to the topic.

For example, in A level Physics, wave-particle duality (1924) makes a bit more sense when you realise the light had been viewed as a particle from Newton (1672) until Young’s double slit experiment in 1801 which suggests it’s a wave, sort of back to a particle (quanta) in 1905 with Einstein’s paper on the photoelectric effect. The student will never be examined on the dates, but it makes sense of four separate and seemingly contradictory bits of Physics, and why wave-particle duality is actually the solution to a long-standing problem.

Similarly, setting the context for a novel can actually be very important to understanding it. World events around the publication of “Of Mice and Men” in 1937 adds to a deeper understanding.

Reading examiners’ reports and mark schemes

A working knowledge of examiners’ reports and mark schemes is invaluable in tutorials. It really is worthwhile having a look at these for the subjects you will be teaching.

The examiners’ reports are rather dull and difficult for students to tackle and, in my experience, students very rarely read them. However, they can be a real treasure trove of useful hints and tips for tutors. In particular finding out how “good” a question is – sometimes examiners write bad questions. Although examiners’ reports aren’t quite blunt enough to say “this was a rubbish question” they will say things like “almost all students failed to interpret this question correctly” – the hint being that the question was basically unanswerable or perhaps didn’t quite make sense. Conversely some questions are just too easy – ultimately if every student gets the question right it’s not really very useful as a question – i.e. it doesn’t help differentiate between grade A and grade E students.

It’s useful to be able to say with confidence that “if you’re the examiner then you would deduct 2 marks here because…” or “the examiners’ report states that almost every student gets this question wrong”.

Examiners’ reports will also highlight well-trodden issues – two classics being “read the question” and “answer the question”. Students will have heard this many times, but it’s useful to be able to back it up with some facts gleaned from examiners reports, e.g. “nearly all students failed to mention…”

In Maths, for example, there are recurrent themes: missing minus signs, missing units, unlabelled axis, missing steps in calculations. For A level Maths, the vast majority of the marks are for the working, the correct answer counts for less than you might think – for a 10-mark question it’s possible that 3 marks are for the correct answers. If you were smart enough to do all the working in your head, you’d get 30%, whereas if all the working was correct, but you just accidentally wrote down the wrong answers you’d get 70%.

Check that the student knows the terminology/topic

Remember that classes are student led, that the students are setting the agenda, and you won’t necessarily know what they have already covered in their schools. Also, different schools do things in different orders, you can’t assume that the schools will have followed the order of the syllabus or even an order that will make sense to you.

It is possible just to check very quickly that all students have covered a particular topic. For example, in A level Physics, you can say “stick up your hand if you’ve covered equations of motion” – if you get all the hands up you can ask for the 4 equations, then you can confidently start on the topic of projectiles knowing that the students at least know of the equations that they need to know. Similarly for other subjects: “what can you tell me about…”, “do you know…”, “have you covered…” are all useful ways to establish where the students are.

A related point to this is the idea of a “sanity check” – does the answer make sense? Students need to be encouraged to make sure that their answers are viable – a chemical reaction in a small test tube is not going to produce 20 Terajoules of energy (similar to the Hiroshima bomb, but in a test tube) and cargo ships don’t go from 0-60 in 1.2 nanoseconds (about a billion times faster than an F1 car).

Gender language and identity

Times are changing and we have recently had a few students who have been gender fluid or in transition. Being a teenager is hard enough and gender identity can also be doubly tough for teenagers, although their peers tend to be a bit more accepting than some of the generations above. As an organisation we want all students (and staff) to feel comfortable and accepted, at ease to go about their studies (and teaching). To help with this we ask that tutors are mindful of the changing landscape. It is probably nicer to say “Good morning people” rather than “Good morning boys and girls”. Generally speaking, it’s nice to use people’s names so it’s better to say “as Matilda said” rather than “as she said”.

I sit almost on the border between Boomers and Gen X and can see the temptation to continue as before, sticking to what I know and the continued use of ‘he’ and ‘she’ pronouns; however, I have concluded that it would be wrong to do so. If you want to learn more watch this documentary: No More Boys and Girls – the language around gender and identity can have a profound influence. Granted this documentary focuses on 7-year-olds – but we do have a minor part to play.

Conclusion

Tutoring 1-to-1 or small groups is different from classroom teaching. We offer a much more bespoke product than schools and we must be much more reactive to the student(s) needs. The students are asked for a list of topics they wish to cover – the tutor’s job is to respond to the list and deliver appropriate content.

The environment is different to a school. Discipline within the classroom is hardly an issue – it’s just very difficult to mess around when it’s just you and the tutor. The timeframe is also radically different, some students are with us for just 1 day. The tutors do need to deliver a lot in a short period of time – something we seem to be good at.

As a former tutor and now Managing Director of OXSS, it was a real privilege to revisit the classroom and (almost) see things for the student(s) point of view – the tutors I saw were highly professional, had great subject knowledge and their tutorials were invariably engaging and at times even fun.