Aukward Tutoring

24/12/2025

Whatever suits YOU is fine! Celebrate each achievement no matter how big or small. Look ahead not behind you. Experience life. Enjoy life. Education is so much more than just school.

Happy Christmas to you all 🎄

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Is progress a good thing?

When Number 3 was looking at which GCSEs he should take, he thought ahead — to which A Levels he might study, what degree he might do, and the job he might eventually have.
He’s a planner. Like his mum. He likes a plan.

He asked,

“Why do I have to take 10 GCSEs when I only need 5 to be able to study A Levels?”

And I had a tricky time answering him in a logical and sensible way.

“It’s because that’s what’s expected,” I said.

“But why?” he asked.

And he’s right to ask. Right to question. Right to want an answer to a very strange phenomenon that’s developed over the years.

Why did he have to aim for double what he actually needed?

What was the point?

Why did he have to overload his life and his brain studying things he didn’t need, just so he could then study more of the things he did?

Another time he said,

“Mum, why do I have to try to get the highest mark I can? Why do I have to get better than I already am? I only need 4s to pass my GCSEs. Why isn’t a 6 good enough?”

And once again I found myself explaining to my very logical Number 3 how competitive the education system is.

How just being -experiencing education, enjoying learning, liking what you’re studying- will never quite be enough, because schools (any school) are measured by how many 9s they get, then how many 8s, then 7s, and so on.

What he achieves, unless it’s a 9, will always be celebrated briefly… and then followed by feedback about how to get the next number.

And so my Number 3 accepts that what he achieves will never be good enough, because “better” is always the message.

Progress in education tells a very small number of pupils that everything is wonderful -and tells everyone else they are never quite enough.

But what about resting on one’s laurels?

What about taking time to absorb what you’ve achieved?

I’ve always found piano the hardest thing I can do musically. I can play the cello and all the recorders to a high standard, and I’ve achieved excellence in music exams -but the piano has always eluded me beyond busking my way through hymn practices with choirs and whole schools.

A couple of years ago, I studied for and took a piano exam.

I worked harder than I ever have.
I battled my coordination difficulties — left hand fine, right hand fine, together… my brain just refuses to cooperate.

And I took the exam and I excelled (because I have also been conditioned to feel ‘excelling’ was the only option for me musically).

And since then?

I’ve rested in my laurels.

I didn’t rush on.
I didn’t buy the next music.
I didn’t chase the next grade.

I wallowed -properly- in the wonder of having achieved something genuinely hard for me.
It’s been a beautiful place to be.

I didn’t need to rush to progress.

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 all got their GCSE results and they did well -but before the day was even over, the conversation had moved on to A Levels.

Number 1’s A Level results day quickly turned into talk of degrees.

Number 2’s will be different.

His will be a celebration of finishing. Of getting through. Of completing his education.
He will leave that day and never step into a school again -and he cannot wait.

He won’t “progress” to university because that’s what he should do.
He’ll take a year -maybe two- to live in another country, work, earn some money, travel, and actually be in the world that for the last six years he’s mostly only seen through pictures in a book and screens (because that’s what happens why you spend 8hrs a day at school each day).

There is no expiry date on our family or our family home.

Our job has been to help our lovelies find their path -not follow the herd.

Number 4?

Study as many GCSEs as you want, not as many as you’re told to.

Be happy with the grades you can *manage* alongside all the other wonderful things you want to do now and in the near future.

Progress is individual.
And it does not always come in a 9.

Sometimes it’s finally building a bloomin’ gingerbread house (subscribers will know 😂) -or not as the case may be.

Sometimes it’s completing a tricky exercise on your pony.

Sometimes it’s not losing your voice when ordering a hot chocolate.

Sometimes it’s finishing that second book of the week -and finding the next one you want to read.

Progress has become far too wrapped up in school and those numbers that children get measured by when our children and young people are so much more than the numbers they’re being given.

Last week, way over a year after I last studied for a piano grade, I ordered the next grade’s music. I will dust down my piano and start the (long and *very* repetitive) process of trying to get my fingers to do what they can do singularly *together* in order the I can take the next exam. It’ll probably take me the whole year but that doesn’t matter. I’m doing it for me.

I’m doing it for me.

Emma
The Autistic SENCo
♾️

Photo: Freedom in Wales. When just ‘being’ was enough.

09/09/2025

Macbeth, often called The Tragedy of Macbeth, is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays. First performed around 1606, it explores how the pursuit of power can lead to both brutal violence and deep psychological torment. The play was first published in the 1623 First Folio, likely taken from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy. Written during the reign of King James I, it contains more references to James than any of Shakespeare’s other works, reflecting his role as patron of Shakespeare’s theatre company.

09/09/2025

GCSE English Language and Literature

Spaces available Monday and Wednesday Evenings
Message me for more details!

05/09/2025

Spaces now available for Autumn tutoring. Year 10s or 11s wanting a boost in GCSE English Literature or Language. PM me for more details.

01/09/2025

Welcome…

…’To Autumn’ - by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

21/08/2025

😀 Good luck to everyone receiving GCSE and BTec results today, and well done on your hard work!

No matter what those results say, you should all be really proud of yourselves.

If things didn’t go quite to plan, don't worry, there's lots of support available.

20/08/2025

All the very best to all GCSE students tomorrow.

I hope that you all achieve everything that you deserve but whatever happens remember that…

13/07/2025

05/06/2025

Good luck to all of my students, and all GCSE English students, in their second English Language paper tomorrow morning. Do yourselves proud!

It’s been an emotional week for me to say goodbye. You’re all brilliant; take on the world and you’ll achieve whatever you want to.

02/06/2025

This is charming!

We often like to come back to Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere journal and see what her life looked like on this day so many years ago. Today's entry is an amusing one — Dorothy has a busy day and takes a moment for herself by the lakeshore. At least, she attempts to...

'A cold dry windy morning. I worked in the garden & planted flowers &c—Sate under the trees after dinner till tea time. John Fisher stuck the peas, Molly weeded & washed. I went to Ambleside after tea, crossed the stepping-stones at the foot of Grasmere & pursued my way on the other side of Rydale & by Clappersgate. I sate a long time to watch the hurrying waves & to hear the regularly irregular sound of the dashing waters. The waves round about the little [Island] seemed like a dance of spirits that rose out of the water, round its small circumference of shore. Inquired about lodgings for Coleridge, & was accompanied by Mrs Nicholson as far as Rydale. This was very kind, but God be thanked I want not society by a moonlight lake—It was near 11 when I reached home. I wrote to Coleridge & went late to bed.'

Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere journal, 2 June 1800

📷Gareth Gardner