When Tutoring Gets Lost in Translation

Happy Friday

Ever had that moment when a student's tutoring work looks nothing like what you're teaching?

You're teaching ‘OCR’ maths. The tutor's teaching ‘OCR MEI’. 

Same words, totally different curriculum.

And that's just when communicating in English. 

Now throw in:

• Parents from different cultures

• Educational agents

• Multiple exam boards

• Different teaching approaches

As Sarah Capewell puts it, when agents are involved, "you're a few steps removed... if the parents don't speak much or any English and the only conversation you're having is with the agent or with the student, it does become more difficult to foster a relationship with the school."

When parents arrange tutoring through educational agents (common in Asia), you can end up with a chain of communication that looks like:

School → Agent → Parent → Tutor

Each step? Another chance for your carefully planned curriculum to get scrambled.

So what's the solution?

The advice from Sarah is clear. Direct communication:

“I would liaise with the tutor because it felt to me like they were supporting me and what I was trying to do."

"I would share homework, and I would say what's worked and what hasn't"

"We were very much operating as like a team around the child"

Clear communication about specifics matters:

• Exact exam boards

• Current curriculum stage

• Assessment approaches

• Learning objectives

These tutoring challenges aren't going away.

But perhaps that's exactly why we need to start talking about them.

Have a great weekend,

Shane

P.S. Got a tutoring mix-up story? Hit reply - I'd love to hear it.

Here’s some of my latest podcast episodes if you fancy a listen: