Tutors Field
National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a series of tests focused on basic skills that are administered annually to Australian students. NAPLAN is an annual assessment, run at the direction of the Education Council, for all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 and tests the types of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life. The tests cover skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy are undertaken every year in the second full week in May with results released in August.
You may have heard that following the release of the 2017 NAPLAN results, the United Nations confirmed Australia has free fallen to 39th in a list of 42 advanced countries, which is hard to believe but true.
This clearly shows something is very wrong with our education system. In addition to this, it has highlighted the effects the standardised testing is having on student’s mental health with increased children reporting stress and anxiety.
Every parent wants to provide their children with the best opportunity to build a successful life for themselves, for this reason, many are supplementing their child’s education with home tutoring.
Kiddipedia’s Mission is to help build a bigger, better Australia. To further support to Australian families we have partnered with Tutors Field; an Australian based organization who can help you find a find a local private tutor for subjects including math, science, English, languages and even music in the cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.
What are the benefits of a child having a home-based private tutor?
Tutor or no tutor? That is the question! As a mum of two, one of them still a toddler and the other in her primary school years (and hats off to those coping with more than two!), life is full on enough without having to think about schooling in general, let alone venturing out into the realm of home-based private tutoring.
While I’m sure there are many of you googling the pros and cons of private tutoring, I’m here to reassure you that there are most definitely some benefits to home-based tutoring and this comes from the perspective of being your average parent just wanting the best for their child.
More than once now, I’ve had teachers tell us our child may need some help when it comes to listening and paying attention in class. If you’re nodding your head in agreement you know what happens next, they recommend a pediatrician or some occupational therapy sessions to help with the areas they’re lacking in etc. What I felt was being missed here was that my child didn’t literally have any hearing or language difficulties (apart from your typical selective hearing!) it was more a case of knowing my child loved the social interaction aspect of school more than the learning side of it and a basic case of if she wasn’t interested in it, she wasn’t engaged.
As much as my adult self would love to say to my child ‘Well, I actually agree with you there darling, why should we do something in life if we’re not interested in it?’, the parent self-stopped me in my tracks and reminded me my child had years of schooling ahead of her and unfortunately, in order to prep her for the big wide world out there one day, there’s going to be a lot of things in life she won’t have the slightest interest in, but she’ll have to listen to all the same if she wants to learn and get ahead in life!
Now, enter a private home-based tutoring here!
The pros for us having a good, private home-based tutor were;
- They gave our child that much-needed one on one attention. Like adults, children have different learning styles and work at different paces and a good private tutor can cater their class or session around your child’s learning abilities. If your child is more visual for example, they might use pictures and maps to help them grasp a concept.
- It was convenient. Having a good tutor come to us instead of vice-versa, especially having other children, not only saved us the time and bother of travel but it meant I could get those simple household chores done and dinner ready knowing our child was getting the help and attention they needed and deserved.
- Built our child’s self-confidence. A private home-based tutor should not only be out to improve your child’s marks at school. They can and should set out to build a child’s confidence by helping them set and achieve specific targets which can sometimes even go beyond what teachers ask of them. When our child had specific goals to achieve, she remained stimulated and challenged – which is a necessity for learning!
- Tutors have access to a wide range of resources and teaching methods.
If you’ve hired a qualified, highly recommended tutor who is passionate about helping children learn, they should be knowledgeable on a range on alternative teaching methods such as the RULER approach, Steiner-Waldorf and even Montessori amongst more tradition methods however some of these focus less on structure and more on learning through play and discovering how we actually retain that information so it’s all about them working out what the best method would be for your child.
Overall, we felt that the time and money we put into having a private home-based tutor effectively helped our child focus better in class so we’re stoked with the outcome and she was pretty proud of herself to which of course, made it even more worthwhile!
Choosing a good tutor
On a side note, it’s best to seek advice from people you know who have had good experiences with and can highly recommend good private home tutors, however, more importantly, your child has to get along with them and the whole experience has to be a positive one. When tutoring comes across as being forced by parents and teachers, it could have the opposite effect and your child may be less engaged than if it had been presented to your child in an optimistic way.
What subjects does Tutors Field provide tutors for young children?
Tutors Field is an online community where parents can find and hire experienced tutors across a wide range of subjects, including math, English, music, music, languages, test preparation, and much more.
How does Tutors Fieldwork?
After entering your desired subject and postcode on Tutors Field, you’ll be redirected to an area where you can view a list of nearby matched tutors, together with their full profiles, and pictures.
After clicking on a tutor, you’ll be taken to their profile page, in here you can read a brief bio, browse reviews, and more.
If you locate a tutor who appears to be a good match, you can chat with the tutor via the chat room. Once arrived in the chat room, you can provide your needs with the tutor or ask any questions. All communication is completely secure.
When you are happy to book in your first lesson with a tutor, you only need to pay for a deposit of $25 to secure the lesson and this will be deducted from your first lesson fee. In other words, Tutors Field is completely free for parents.
