Hands up all those who have challenged an underperforming teenager and got any of the following replies:
“I’ll do it with my tutor”
“Why aren’t we revising <unrealistic topic>?”
“It’s okay, I’ve got a tutor”
“It doesn’t matter what I do in class, I’ll do it with X”
“I don’t need to revise fractions (even though they can’t do them)”
“My tutor says this work is too easy for me”
“I don’t want to revise solving equations, I can’t do them”
“I’ve been doing cosine rule with my tutor (not even on the tier they are doing)”
“I’ve never done this (yes, you have but you talked through it every time we did it)”
“My mum says my tutor says I should be doing Higher”
“My tutor wants past papers”
Now don’t get me wrong, I know some amazing tutors – they know their maths, they are up to date with curriculum changes and they make a real difference. I also teach amazing kids who try their best all the time.
What really irritates me is the students who use tutors as an excuse for laziness and the tutors who teach complex topics but fail to reinforce the basics. So to combat this issue I’ve put together this PowerPoint – it got the message through to the students I was worried about in Year 11.
What should you revise (ppt)