Merry Learners

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Helping primary children build confidence and enjoy learning again 💛
🎓 Experienced primary teacher (13yrs)
🌟 Fun, confidence-building tutoring
💛 Support for diverse learning needs
🌿 Calm, relaxed & positive approach
📋 Full GTCS & Disclosure Check

“It’s so easy!"I LOVE hearing this during our maths sessions!Here we’re working with two-digit numbers, finding one more...
06/10/2026

“It’s so easy!"

I LOVE hearing this during our maths sessions!

Here we’re working with two-digit numbers, finding one more and one less… and the little ones keep asking me for harder ones! 🙌

There’s something amazing about watching children become confident enough to say, “I can do that. Give me another!”

In my small maths groups, we use games, practical activities and plenty of conversation to help children understand what they’re doing and explain their thinking. There’s time to ask questions, have another go and celebrate those little wins 🥰

📍 Bargarran Community Centre, Erskine
🗓️ Monday afternoons
💛 First and Second Level maths groups

Thinking about some support after the October break? Send me a message and we can chat about which group might suit your child.

05/10/2026

“Can we work on this?” 💛

Some of our maths group had found a particular type of addition question tricky in their homework. They got chatting about it during our session and asked if we could practise it together 🥰

So that’s exactly what we did!

We explored our number lines, figuring out what each space represented, and worked through addition questions on the whiteboard.

You’ll also see a little moment of me working individually with one of the children, encouraging him to explain his thinking. It helps me understand how he’s approaching the question and where a little support might help 💡

I love that they felt comfortable saying something was tricky and asking for help. That growing confidence matters just as much as getting the answer right 💛

Small groups give us space to listen, respond and spend time on the things children need.

📍 Monday maths groups at Bargarran Community Centre, Erskine
🌟 First and Second Level

If you’re thinking about some support after the October break, send me a wee message — I’d love to chat about your child 🥰

Merry Monday, Merry Learners! 💛We had such a lovely day cheering on Daddy at the AJ Bell Run yesterday! 🏃‍♂️👏 Connor had...
05/10/2026

Merry Monday, Merry Learners! 💛

We had such a lovely day cheering on Daddy at the AJ Bell Run yesterday! 🏃‍♂️👏 Connor had his homemade sign at the ready! Cutest wee cheerleader! 🥰

I’m looking forward to a super busy week at Merry Learners, seeing all my lovely learners and getting stuck into our learning together. Then I’ll be getting set for an amazing weekend away celebrating my good friend getting married!! 🥂💍 So much to look forward to!

How are you feeling this Monday? Whether you’re raring to go or easing yourself in with a cuppa, come and say hello! 💛👇

🤩 Ready for a busy week
☕ Taking it one cuppa at a time
🍂 Enjoying the autumn days
🥰 Looking forward to something lovely

🎃 Only TWO spaces left for my Halloween STEM Workshop at Pandamonium! 👻I’m SO excited for spooky building challenges, Ha...
04/10/2026

🎃 Only TWO spaces left for my Halloween STEM Workshop at Pandamonium! 👻

I’m SO excited for spooky building challenges, Halloween crafts, lunch and of course loads of fun in the soft play at Pandamonium Centre! 🧡

Grab one of the last spots and join the fun! 👇

💛 Getting the best from a child doesn’t always mean getting their best written work. 💛While reading This Is Dyslexia by ...
02/10/2026

💛 Getting the best from a child doesn’t always mean getting their best written work. 💛

While reading This Is Dyslexia by Kate Griggs, I came across this quote:

“When I was 9 years old, my life was transformed when a teacher saw past my test scores and recognised my strengths and what I was passionate about. These strengths and passions are the very things that helped me succeed in my role today.”

I read it and immediately had a wee moment of

That’s the teacher I’ve always tried to be!

The teacher who sees beyond the test result, reading level or piece of unfinished writing.

The teacher who wants to know what makes a child light up.

What they could talk about for hours.

What they love doing when nobody is marking it.

What they dream of becoming.

What they can create, explain, build, imagine or understand even when getting it onto paper feels incredibly difficult.

Written work matters, of course! Developing reading, spelling and writing skills can open so many doors, and supporting children with those skills is a huge part of what I do.

But a child’s “best” can be so much bigger than the work they produce.

Sometimes getting the best from a child looks like them trusting me enough to share an idea.

Talking excitedly about something they love.

Taking part without worrying about getting it wrong.

Discovering a talent they hadn’t recognised in themselves.

Imagining a future where their interests and strengths have value.

Or beginning to believe that the things they find difficult are not the most important things about them.

This is something tutoring has allowed me to explore so much more deeply.

I have the time to follow those little sparks to build learning around dinosaurs, football, fishing, make-up, animals, gaming or whatever makes that particular child think, talk and engage.

Those interests aren’t distractions from the learning.

They are often the doorway into it.

And maybe, years from now, the things a child is passionate about today will become the very strengths that help them thrive.

If I can be one of the people who notices those strengths, helps a child name them and makes sure they know they matter, then that means far more to me than a perfectly completed page ever could. 💛

Dyslexia-friendly learning isn’t about making the learning “easy.” 💛It’s about making it accessible.It’s about recognisi...
01/10/2026

Dyslexia-friendly learning isn’t about making the learning “easy.” 💛

It’s about making it accessible.

It’s about recognising that a child may understand far more than they can currently show through reading or writing and finding the right route to help them develop those skills without losing their confidence along the way.

At Merry Learners, that might look like:

✨ breaking instructions into smaller, clearer steps
✨ showing as well as telling
✨ using objects, pictures, movement and practical activities
✨ saying an idea aloud before trying to write it
✨ revisiting learning in lots of different ways
✨ giving a child enough time to think and respond
✨ building activities around something that genuinely interests them
✨ turning practise into a game so repetition doesn’t feel defeating

It still includes direct teaching.

We still work on sounds, spelling patterns, reading, writing and all the skills a child needs to develop.

The games and practical activities don’t replace that teaching, they help children access it, practise it and remain engaged with it.

And sometimes the most important thing I can do is notice when the route I’ve planned isn’t working and be willing to change it.

That doesn’t mean lowering my expectations of the child.

It means asking myself:

“Is this task showing me what they understand or is it only showing me where the barrier is?”

Because the goal can stay ambitious even when the route towards it looks different.

A child might build the sentence before writing it.

Act out the story before summarising or answering questions about it.

Use magnetic letters before picking up a pencil.

Talk through an amazing idea while I help them organise it.

Move, touch, create, laugh and learn.

When we give children the right tools, enough time and a way into the learning that makes sense to them, we create more opportunities for them to experience success.

And every genuine experience of success gives that little inner voice another reason to say:

“Maybe I can do this.” 💛

Different route. Same belief in what they can achieve.

What if we look at how a child thinks, not what they find difficult? 💛One of the things that has really stayed with me w...
30/09/2026

What if we look at how a child thinks, not what they find difficult? 💛

One of the things that has really stayed with me while reading This Is Dyslexia by Kate Griggs is the idea of dyslexic thinking Made By Dyslexia.

When we talk about dyslexia in education, the conversation can understandably focus on the difficulties: reading, spelling, writing, processing information or remembering instructions.

Those difficulties are real, and all children deserve the right support with them.

But they are not the whole picture.

Dyslexic thinkers can also show wonderful strengths in areas such as imagination, storytelling, visual thinking, problem-solving, communication and seeing connections that other people might miss.

Of course, no two dyslexic children are the same. There isn’t one set of strengths that every dyslexic person will have, but I do think we need to become much better at noticing what is there.

The child who struggles to write their idea down might be able to explain it perfectly aloud.

The child who finds it difficult to follow a long list of instructions might come alive when they can build, create or explore!

The child whose spelling makes their work difficult to read might have imagined an entire world inside their head.

Something I found amazing is that Dyslexic Thinking has now been added as a recognised skill on LinkedIn, and the term has been added to Dictionary.com.

So many of the skills associated with dyslexic thinking: creativity, communication, adaptability and problem-solving are becoming increasingly valuable in our changing world.

Yet children can spend so much of their school experience believing that the things they find difficult are more important than the ways in which they think brilliantly.

This is one of the reasons I love giving children different ways to show me what they know at Merry Learners.

We can talk, draw, build, act, move, play, create and imagine.

Sometimes the written work will be the goal. Sometimes it will be one small part of something much bigger.

Because supporting a child is about removing the barriers that prevent us from seeing what they are truly capable of. 💛

💛 “I can’t do it.” 💛It’s a phrase I hear quite often and sometimes it means much more than simply finding one task diffi...
29/09/2026

💛 “I can’t do it.” 💛

It’s a phrase I hear quite often and sometimes it means much more than simply finding one task difficult.

When a child has spent a long time struggling with reading, spelling or writing, “I can’t do this” can slowly begin to sound more like:

“I’m not clever.”

“I’m always the slowest.”

“Everyone else can do it.”

“There’s no point in me trying.”

And that is the part that really gets me.

Every child is different, and dyslexia won’t affect every child’s confidence in the same way. But since becoming a tutor and spending more time working closely with individual children, I’ve become even more aware of how deeply their experiences of learning can shape the way they see themselves.

Sometimes a child will avoid a task, rush through it, make a joke or insist they don’t care. It can look like a lack of effort but underneath, they may be protecting themselves from having to feel unsuccessful again.

That’s why building confidence isn’t something separate from the “real learning” at Merry Learners.

It is part of the learning.

It doesn’t mean telling a child everything is easy or covering every mistake with praise. It means acknowledging when something genuinely is difficult while helping them understand that difficulty does not define their intelligence, their ideas or their potential.

We can help them replace:

“I can’t do this”

with:

“I can’t do this yet.”

“I might need to try it differently.”

“I can ask for help.”

“This is difficult, but that doesn’t mean I’m not clever.”

I’ve also been looking at some beautiful Wise for My Size resources, stories to help children explore confidence, worries, resilience and self-talk from The Wee Coaching Company .

I particularly love their idea of noticing our unkind “shade talk” and turning up the volume on our more encouraging “shine talk.” Not forced positivity just learning to speak to ourselves with a little more patience and kindness. 💛

Because finding reading, spelling or writing difficult should never become a child’s whole view of who they are.

Sometimes one of the most meaningful changes we can help a child make isn’t on the page in front of them.

It’s in the voice they hear inside their own head. 💛

💛 Dyslexia Awareness Week 💛This year, Dyslexia Scotland is encouraging us to think about the small actions we can all ta...
28/09/2026

💛 Dyslexia Awareness Week 💛

This year, Dyslexia Scotland is encouraging us to think about the small actions we can all take to help create a more dyslexia-friendly Scotland.

For me, one of those actions is continuing to listen and learn.

Supporting children with dyslexia isn’t new to me. I’ve had training and experience throughout my teaching career, and seeing the whole child has been at the heart of how I’ve taught since my very first year in the classroom.

I’ve always adapted activities, tried different strategies and looked beyond what a child can produce on a page.

But becoming a tutor has given me the time and space to look even more deeply.

In the classroom, so much of the focus has to be on finding the strategy that will help a child access the learning. That still matters enormously but now I can also spend time discovering what makes that individual child light up.

What do they want to tell me?
What do they dream about?
What are they brilliant at that might never appear in a jotter?
How have their experiences of learning shaped the way they see themselves?

And how can I help them recognise everything that is already there?

Getting the best out of a child doesn’t always mean producing their “best work.”

Sometimes it’s hearing them share an idea they would normally keep to themselves.

Sometimes it’s watching them become completely absorbed in creating something.

Sometimes it’s helping them imagine a future they’re excited about.

Sometimes it’s simply hearing “I’ll try” instead of “I can’t.”

I’ve been reading and listening to much more about dyslexia and dyslexic thinking recently not because caring for the whole child is a new idea to me, but because I want to keep deepening my understanding of the children and families I work with.

I want to understand the difficulties, celebrate strengths meaningfully and help children build the skills and self-belief they need to become exactly who they are capable of becoming.

Throughout Dyslexia Awareness Week, I’ll be sharing some of what I’m learning, some of the ideas that have really made me think and some of the brilliant resources and events Dyslexia Scotland has created 💛

Merry Monday, Merry Learners! ☀️💛The sun is shining and I’m getting everything ready for today’s Endangered Animals Work...
28/09/2026

Merry Monday, Merry Learners! ☀️💛

The sun is shining and I’m getting everything ready for today’s Endangered Animals Workshop with a lovely wee group! 🐢🌿

We’ve got clay animals, habitat building and lots of curious questions planned. I can’t wait to see what they create!

How’s your Monday looking?

☀️ Enjoying the sunshine
☕ Taking it slowly
🎨 Keeping the kids busy
🐢 Ready for some workshop fun!

Address

Bishopton

Telephone

+447773713727

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