Tag Archive: become a tutor

1. A New Year’s Resolution, For Teachers… Finally!

   9 February 2024 12:52 pm Leave a Comment

   The new term is underway, and you’re settled back into the swing of things.

   Now is the time for teachers to think about setting a New Year’s Resolution or two for the months ahead.

   Here are a few suggestions:

   New Year’s Resolution Number 1: Be More Organised

   Many teachers start the year well but then things start to slide.

   Being organised doesn’t necessarily guarantee you will have a great lesson, day, or week, of course. However, if you are continually disorganised and running around chasing your tail, those good and great days will be few and far between.

   And the thing with being disorganised is that it never gets better – it always gets worse.

   So, Resolution Number 1 has got to be to get more organised!

   Whether it’s to try to get to school 5 or 10 minutes earlier, or to vow to keep your desk tidier, any small way that you can try to be more organised will help.

   It should even result in you having a calmer and less stressful day.

   It will make you feel on top of your workload. For any teacher, this is massive.

   If you’d like to read more around how you can get a little more organised on a weekly basis, check out this handy blog from asana!

   Resolution Number 2: Take Less Work Home

   Work/life balance is a major issue for any teacher. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

   However, teachers are sometimes their own worst enemies. If you set out to take less work home – either on certain days or at the weekend (occasionally), you will stop the blurring of school and home.

   And it might even stop you feeling like you are working all the time.

   How do you do this?

   You can try to work smarter when you are setting homework to reduce the marking load.

   Is there a day of the week when you could stay in school to work later to finish things off and prepare for the next day? It’s a great feeling to get home and know that all your time that evening is for you, your kids, or your partner.

   Listen, you’re a teacher, so realistically you’re never going to make every night like that.

   But once or twice a week, or just every once in a while, would be nice, wouldn’t it?

   Resolution Number 3: Prioritise Your Own Wellbeing

   As teachers, we are wired to put our students first. It sometimes seems difficult to prioritise our own mental health and wellbeing. We feel guilty if we put ourselves first.

   However, this is the most important resolution of all.

   Putting your mental health first will not only make you a better teacher, but it will also make you a better parent, partner, family member, and friend.

   You will know what it is that is good for you and what works for your wellbeing, but typically if you try to eat healthily, get regular exercise, and give yourself time to spend on a hobby or interest, you will get a big mental health boost.

   It will certainly help to eliminate stress – something we’ve discussed here previously.

   You will be happier, have more energy, and be far better placed to take on the challenges of teaching, and whatever else life throws at you.

   It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it?

2. Why Are Teachers Striking?

   21 April 2023 4:22 pm Leave a Comment

   With the current strike action by teachers at the moment. It seems a good moment to try and unpick the question: Why are teachers striking?

   Often the media paints a distorted picture of strike action. This is true of all sectors and – naturally – the focus is often on the disruption caused rather than the reasons behind the action. 

   It’s why you may have seen plenty of reporting about cancelled appointments and operations because of strikes in the NHS, for example. Meanwhile, in education, much of the media attention has focused on the disruption to children’s schooling – especially as the industrial action comes relatively soon after covid – and all the disruption to education caused by the pandemic.

   

   Teacher strikes – Some context

   For over a decade now government funding for education has been cut. The funding squeeze has had a detrimental effect on the quality of children’s education. Schools have been forced to cut services to the bone and are continually asked to do more with less.

   On a day-to-day basis, this means less teachers and support staff which, in turn, leads to larger class sizes. Provision for students with special needs and those with mental health issues has been particularly affected.

   In addition, the current climate of increased energy prices has crippled schools financially. Moreover, the government’s continued resistance to dealing with longstanding concerns about teachers’ pay and workload has exacerbated an already worrying recruitment and retention crisis within the profession. 

   Schools are struggling to attract new teachers. Not only that, one in three teachers leave the profession within five years of qualifying.

   There are teacher shortages in many subjects, including Maths. School leaders are increasingly left with no option but to put non-specialist staff in front of classes.

   Why are Teachers Striking? – It’s not just about pay

   When you appreciate the context surrounding it, you can see that the current industrial action in schools is certainly not just about pay.

   However, pay is an issue. The profession has faced pay freezes and minimal rises for over a decade. Pay offers have increased slightly in the last year – an average of 5.4% in September and a further offer of 4.5% for next year. However, these rises are heavily weighted for teachers at the lower end of the pay scale. It means that experienced teachers and school leaders receive the least. This does nothing to address the existing retention issues, the pay awards are still not enough to attract new recruits to the profession in the numbers that are so desperately needed.

   The other thing which should not be forgotten is that any pay rise that the government has offered to date has not been fully funded. The money to pay for salary increases must come out of a school’s existing budget – essentially meaning that the greater the pay rise, the more students suffer.

   Teachers’ wages have been falling behind for years now.  And with the current 10%+ rate of inflation, the pay offers that the government has offered to date are in effect real terms pay cuts. Indeed – teachers have lost 23% in real terms since 2010. And for support staff, the figure is even higher at 27%

   All teachers are asking for is a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise. 

   Teaching unions argue that any disruption to children’s education through strike action is dwarfed by the long-term damage caused by year-on-year education funding cuts, and the government’s continued inaction on teacher workload and pay. 

   All in all, the answer to the question ‘Why are teachers striking?‘ lies within a perfect storm of low pay, funding cuts, and excessive workload.

   And, as the unions say, staff working conditions are student learning conditions.

3. Why you should consider becoming a tutor

   28 October 2022 1:47 pm Leave a Comment

   It’s a weird thing to be honest, but you’d be surprised at how many qualified teachers know very little about what tutoring really entails. Of course, tutoring is very similar to conventional teaching in many ways – but there are some key differences too. Becoming a tutor isn’t for everybody – nothing is – but we think, in general, that the differences are advantages. 

   Maybe we’re a little biased but this isn’t about us, it’s about you. We don’t want to give you some sort of glorified sales pitch here. We just want to set out the case for why you should consider becoming a tutor.

   Nothing more, nothing less. No pressure. We want you to make your own mind up.

   Become a tutor – for practical reasons

   In reality, life is often about the practicalities. And that’s the first reason why you should consider becoming a tutor. Take 3 scenarios: 

   1) You’re a newly qualified teacher just starting out in schools. You could do with extra income to help pay off your student loans.

   2) You’re a teacher coming back to the classroom after a career break – maybe maternity – and you don’t want a full-time position in school so that you can have more flexibility because your circumstances have changed.

   3) You’ve retired from teaching full-time – but you’d still like to do the best bits of the job, on your own terms.

   For all the above, tutoring could be the ideal choice. 

   Become a tutor – to escape the politics and pressure of schools

   Maybe ‘escape’ is a bit strong, but let’s not beat around the bush here. Teaching, undoubtedly, is a wonderful profession. It can be the best career in the world. It’s a vocation and a calling, not simply a job. However, anybody who has been in or around education in recent years knows only too well that there are a hell of a lot of teachers trying to get out of the profession. What’s more, the stats don’t lie – an alarming number of new teachers aren’t sticking around for very long. Recruitment and retention figures are very worrying.

   There are many reasons for this and now is not the place to wax lyrical about the whys and wherefores of it all. Having said that, let’s just say that that tutoring can offer you a way out from the staffroom politics, the workload, the incessant pressure… oh… and OFSTED.

   You can probably see where we’re coming from now!

   Become a tutor – to make a difference

   

   Ask any teacher why they came into the profession, and you are likely to hear the reply, ‘To make a difference.’ And teachers really do make a difference – every single day. But in the high pressure, cut and thrust climate of progress targets, observations and inspections, the never-ending scrutiny and monitoring can make even the most dedicated professionals feel as though they are not making as much of a difference to the future of young people as they would have hoped.

   With tutoring, you can literally see the difference you are making on a day-to-day and one-to-one basis. Whether it’s helping push a GCSE student up from Grade 2 to a Grade 4, or enabling a school refuser to access the education they deserve, the rewards are tangible.

   Become a tutor – to become a better teacher

   Although people might be considering becoming a tutor as an alternative to teaching, it doesn’t have to be instead of teaching, it can be as well as… and tutoring gives you a fantastic opportunity to really hone your craft. 

   Private tutoring will only make you an even better classroom teacher overall.

   Tutoring is your opportunity to genuinely provide bespoke and personalised learning for each individual student. This is a challenge – but it’s a pleasure and a privilege too.

   Join our team

   At TutorRight, we have a motto: ‘their success starts with you.’ Our tutors are what makes TutorRight tick. If tutoring sounds like it could be for you, we’d love to hear from you. You stay in complete control. You’ll never be under pressure to take on more students than you want to. You can be as flexible as you want to be – and you’ll always be paid competitively and treated like the professional you are always.

   Registering your interest is easy. Simply fill in the form here, click send, and we’ll be in touch!