SEE Tutoring

I have to be honest that I knew it had been a while, but 11 months since my last post has surprised me! I have been in the very privileged position since then of being fully booked and I find it very hard to turn people away when they are looking for help, so I have been quietly still working but not advertising it!

This academic year however it is all change for me. I am closing my face to face tutoring services. I believe I have contacted everyone who was on a waiting list, but if you haven't heard from me, the email may have gone into your junk. I am not offering after school or weekend sessions for the foreseeable future, though I may still offer the odd holiday session.

I love tutoring but I accidentally stumbled across an absolute dream job. I started this week and I'm able to continue teaching and working with children, whilst also maintaining the very important work/life balance and being around for my own boys.

As a result, SEE Tutoring is going to change a bit!
I am going to try continuing to offer services but remotely and offer more help to parents to support their own children. I am also continuing some remote work I do for an education company, writing curriculums and lesson plans for schools.
Once I have settled in to the new job and new routine I'll have a think more about what I could offer and what direction I see my little business going in. I'm thinking a name change is needed!
Thank you everyone who has supported my journey so far and to all of the wonderful families who I had a little tear over saying goodbye to last week!

Keeping Safe!
There have been a few news articles around the last week or so around tutors and potentially unsafe adults who shouldn't be working with children, doing so as a tutor.
I just wanted to reassure everyone I work with that I have a full, enhanced DBS certificate, teacher registration number, good references and I am up to date with full safeguarding training.
If any families who I cannot work with due to my availability are looking elsewhere for tutors, please do make sure you ask the questions:
-Do you have a DBS certificate?
-Are you a qualified teacher?
Any families who wish to see any of my documents are more than welcome to do so-please just drop me a message.
Tutoring is, at the moment, a completely unregistered profession and anyone could market themselves as a tutor to work with children.
Please ask if you are ever unsure!

September!
How did it arrive so quickly?!
It's been a busy summer holiday here...as well as having my two boys at home, I've been tutoring 1 day a week and I have completed some training:
-I did an update and now have a full Paediatric First Aid certificate alongside my emergency care one
-I completed a Level 2 in 'Understanding and Supporting Children's Mental Health
-I completed a day's training with a company I am going to be working for on ad hoc days this year, delivering workshops for teachers and students on developing oracy and language skills
-I have updated my safeguarding training

I have also started a new part time role writing and creating lesson plans and resources to develop writing skills for an online platform.
Phew! All knowledge will be put to good use in sessions (though hopefully not from the first aid course!)

My September timetable is looking busy- as well as my regular tutoring slots and the work as above, I am working one morning a week teaching my main love, Forest School at a local primary school. It has been odd not being back in sorting a classroom out and meeting a new class, but I'm really excited for the mix of work this year and being able to fit it around taking my boy to school and being there to pick him up every day.

I have a waiting list for after school sessions and just one space available during school hours on a Monday or Thursday. Please get in touch if you would like more information!

Summer holidays! I know I said I would post some more ideas and resources on here, but the holidays with my two small people at home have been very busy!
I am still working but cramming everything into one day as best I can. I've seen lots of my regular students and a few new ones for some holiday booster sessions. Whilst 6 weeks off is great for some children, others just need a little boost and top up of their learning. You would be surprised at how much they forget without the regular practise at school.
I always try and make sessions fun but even more so in the holidays. One of my most popular resources is this 100 square pop it. All children love a pop it! We have been developing place value understanding, addition, subtraction and times tables with it. This is definitely one of my go-to's that is always in my tutoring bag if I need a 5 minute filler or a quick brain break.

As I am now fully booked for after school/ holiday sessions (I have one slot left for home ed hours!) I am going to use this page to share some simple ideas you can do at home to support your child with their learning.
First up- numicon!
Has anyone got any of this? I think it's the most amazing resource for supporting maths. I got a big bag from Vinted and use it to support children from EYFS into Key Stage 2. Being able to see the numbers make it so clear and can make a huge difference to the children. We make number bonds, patterns, work on addition, subtraction and multiplication ums and so much more!
I have to be honest, one of my favourite things about it is hearing the smallest children trying to pronounce it- many of my classes would call it "the unicorn!"

A bit of a different set up today! As the community centres are closed for the polls, I took a home ed group session outside. All set up for a minibeast themed play session.

I'm back after an amazing time exploring France on a road trip with my boys! I'll be honest, most of the weekend will be spent doing loads of washing 😂 but I'm also sitting down to check through any messages I've had since I've been away. If you have been in touch, apologies for the delay in getting back to you-we were travelling around places so signal and WiFi was a bit hit and miss.
To all my current families, I'm busy planning sessions- all starting back as usual Monday. Please drop me a message if anything has come up over the last few weeks you'd like me to cover or any new interests!
One of my jobs for next week is to finalise all my summer bookings and my timetable for September, so please get in touch ASAP if you'd like anything different, anything new, or any new families want to book in!
Thanks,
Sophie

Are you interested in summer sessions? Six weeks is a long time for some children to not keep on top of their learning. I am running some sessions over the summer break. Please get in touch or fill out my expression of interest form:

Expression of Interest Please fill out details for your interest in sessions

I had a lovely Saturday morning session today with one of my students. When I arrived he was busy building a car park out of magnetic tiles and I could tell he wouldn't be as focused as he was still thinking about it! We therefore spent our session doing something a bit different - car park design! We drew and labelled a design looking at phonics and spelling patterns. We then wrote some simple instructions for the build, before incorporating some maths and working out how many cars could park on each level. We practised some addition and subtraction working out how many cars as they parked and then left the car park.
Sessions like this are exactly why I love tutoring. I could tailor the entire session to what I know his specific learning targets are, whilst doing so in a fun, engaging way that was real and important to him.

Some of the work created in our group session today. We started by sharing our favourite animals and then went with the children's interests. We used our reading skills to find out facts, lots of maths skills in comparing weights and sizes, then wrote our own fact cards. My favourite part was our investigation into animals sizes when we worked out that around 11 lions in a row are the same length as a blue whale!

Busy prepping resources for my sessions this week! Just finished creating an electronic version of my handwriting support, using blocks to show the difference in size and shape of the letters. If you are interested in finding out more about helping your child learn, I am planning on posting more ideas on this page and I also have limited spaces remaining for home ed sessions. Please contact me for more information! All of my planning and teaching stems from the children - their own interests, their abilities, their needs.

I've been working on this for a while and super excited to get started! First session 21/5, bookable as a trial of you want to see how your child gets on. Please message me if you would like any further information.
If I have enough interest, I am hopefully starting a second group running straight after for 8-11 year olds- please get in touch!