Education

The Profs Tutoring – University and Beyond!

January 23, 2017January 31, 2017 JayneLeave a comment

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m at an age now where some of my friends have kids of university age and older, so as much as my two are still in the early stages of their education, my friends’ kids are moving on to higher education already. It’s a real eye-opener, seeing all of the processes that they have to go through, from UCAS forms to Uni tours and applications for finance, it’s WAY more daunting than a primary school application and that’s before the work has even begun.

Some of you may remember that I started a degree myself, back in 2010 when Sausage was just 2. I had grand ideas of studying psychology and although I managed to get through my first two courses, the workload got too much once I returned to work, not forgetting the huge hike in fees which happened to treble the cost of my courses. It gave me huge respect for the people who move miles away from home at the tender age of eighteen to do it all full-time and made me realise that there must be kids who need help too.

It never occurred to me before that University students might have private tutors, but that’s exactly what the guys at The Profs do. They’re a University tutors service, aimed at students in higher education, and can help with private tuition, applications, academic consultancy, career advice, writing guidance and everything else a student might need to help them to get through their courses. The tutors are all trained professionals from top universities, so they know all-too-well the rigours of Uni life and how tough it can be to keep on top of everything whilst dealing with what is most youngsters’ first real taste of independence.

The Profs’ mission statement is:

A Private tutor can improve your understanding, boost your grades, diminish pressure, and enhance employment prospects!

We provide private tuition, academic mentoring and educational consultancy for students at all levels. Our tutors are professional tutors with teaching experience at top universities, schools, and institutions.

Our tutors are experts in everything from exam technique to revision technique and we seek to give students the confidence and dedication needed to succeed in education.

We have hundreds of educators working with thousands of students in pretty much any subject you can think of. Please, give us a call and see how we can help you.

With the job market being tougher than it’s ever been, even for graduates, it’s good to know that young people (or even people like myself who choose to go back into education after many years) are able to get the help that they need to enable them to get the best results they can. The cost of tutoring through The Profs are really reasonable given that they are all world-class educators and teachers. Many of them can also work online giving students from all around the world ultimate flexibility in having professional classes, no matter where they are based.

If you’d like to know how to find a tutor for yourself or your child, click on the link above to be taken to The Profs’ website.

School

Researching Our Options with School Reviewer

September 1, 2016August 31, 2016 JayneLeave a comment

School Reviewer I’ve written here before about the potential conundrum with our school situation and with Sausage about to go into year 4, it’s becoming ever more pressing. When we moved to our little village, we gave Sausage three options. She could either quit school and be home educated, change schools to one more local to where we’re living, or stay where she is but have a bit of a commute each day. Ultimately, she decided to stay where she was and we weren’t unhappy about that as her current school is very good and was our only choice of Primary for her.

The conundrum happens when we start to factor in BB starting school in 2018, Sausage’s final year of primary. Do we send her to the same school as Sausage and tie ourselves into another 7 years of commuting a fair distance, send her to a primary closer to home and deal with very awkward school runs for a year (with both of them needing to be in different schools at the same times in the morning) or maybe even home educate BB for reception year until we know where Sausage will be going for secondary.

We recently happened upon School Reviewer, which really is a one-stop-shop for everything school related and it’s been an absolutely invaluable resource for us while we mull over this decision. They say:

School Reviewer is so much more than just a review site

It’s the only site with unique video walkthroughs to show how to score a 100% on Maths GCSE and SATs papers.
The only site with a unique Buy and Sell section specific to individual schools.
A site with a unique catchment area heat map for every state school in the UK.
A site that has discussion forums for parents on a local and national basis. A site that is recruiting tutors for free to create the biggest and most trusted tutor site for parents in the UK.
A site where you can read or write reviews about your child’s school to help other parents.
In fact, it’s the perfect choice for you and your child’s educational journey.

As well as allowing us to get a really comprehensive overview of all of the schools in our area, it’s also a fab resource for tutors, something we’re considering in the run up to the 11+. However, if a tutor is not within budget, School Reviewer also sells practice exam papers for SATs and GCSEs, with 11+ papers to be added to the site really soon. I really like the idea of being able to test Sausage at home and having access to official papers will make this so much easier. School Reviewer Buy and Sell

I think my favourite feature, however, is the buy and sell section, which School Reviewer have recently made completely free to use. You can buy and sell things which are specific to your school, allowing you to grab bargains like nearly-new school uniform, text books and other stuff for a fraction of the price. The back to school period can be ridiculously expensive so giving parents a way to save money is really positive, as well as allowing you to make a few quid off of anything that you no longer need.

All in all, I think the people behind School Reviewer are absolute geniuses. I’m not aware of any other sites which offer such a thorough overview of all things school related and I’ll be recommending it to basically anyone who will listen! Head over to the site to take a look yourself.

Getting Ahead with Tutor Hunt

March 20, 2016April 29, 2016 Jayne3 Comments

Tutor Hunt Living where we do, the secondary school situation can be pretty competitive. We’re lucky enough to have two amazing girls schools nearby (one of which, my old school in fact, is ranked in the top 60 of the whole country!) and we’re hoping that Sausage will pass her 11+. The exam itself is said to have got a lot harder in recent years and I know that a lot of her peers will start receiving tutoring in the next year or so, to help improve their chances.

Tutor Hunt is a brilliant service which allows you to find a tutor in your area, letting you narrow down the choices to find exactly the right person for you. You can even find an online tutor so that, as with us, living remotely shouldn’t be an issue. It also allows you to narrow down the search by price range, which will allow you to only look at tutors you can afford, making life SO much easier.

The really unique thing about Tutor Hunt is that it’s not actually a tutoring service, it’s simply a matching service, so although there’s a small fee for matching you with a tutor, they won’t charge ongoing commission, which means that your tutor takes home every penny you pay, which ensures a really high standard of tuition (and is also great for motivating teenagers to study, at a later stage)

Tutor Hunts says “Most tuition agencies will select your tutor for you, based on who they think would be suitable. Tutor Hunt doesn’t work this way: we believe the parent, or the student themselves to be the best judge. They will know better than an agency assessor who is the right tutor for them.

Most agencies work by commission, taking a cut of the tutor’s earnings. This has the effect of driving up the tutor’s hourly rate considerably, as the tutor will seek to recoup their lost funds. This effectively passes the cost onto the student; and with ongoing lessons, the cumulative amount can be quite significant. The hourly rates of tutors signed up with Tutor Hunt are less than tutors working for agencies, as they are in complete control of their rates, we do not take any commission from them.”

One thing that we’re seriously considering is teaming up with another family to make tutoring a more affordable prospect for our families. One of my friends has a son who is in the same year of school as Sausage and his parents are also keen for him to attend a grammar school, so getting both kids tutored at the same time would be economical and convenient for all involved.

If you’re looking for a tutor or simply want to know more about the whole tutoring process, head over to the Tutor Hunt website for more details.

Education · Review

TutorFair Review

August 26, 2015 JayneLeave a comment

As you’ll know if you’ve read this post, Sausage is a super bright girl, but thanks to being let down by a previous teacher, she lacks confidence in Maths and related topics. So when we were asked by Tots100 if we’d like the opportunity to receive a couple of tutoring sessions with TutorFair in a topic of our choice, we jumped at the chance. TutorFair offer teachers in a number of topics, including instrument tuition, but it seemed prudent for us to take advantage of some extra help with maths, if only to show Sausage just how capable she actually is.

The TutorFair website is one of my favourite things about the whole experience – it gives you the ability to narrow down what you’re looking for by subject, area, even budget, so you don’t end up trawling through a list of irrelevant teachers at prices you can’t afford. It also gives you an overview of the experience and qualifications of each tutor; the young man who came to see us was a Physics graduate and did his post-grad teacher training at Cambridge University, which is pretty impressive!

On the day, our tutor Sam arrived early for the session but jumped straight in (after taking his shoes off at the door, despite my protestations – excellent manners!) and gave Sausage a special programme to work through on his iPad to show him exactly where she was in terms of her knowledge. This allowed him to see exactly where she needed help and meant that their time together was properly optimised.

Using a combination of iPad and traditional pen and paper, Sausage and Sam worked through a whole load of topics (with me hovering around to get a good overview for review purposes) and it seemed like he was really able to connect with Sausage and pass on some new techniques for doing certain sums. I try not to criticize the UK’s free education system too much as it’s fantastic for most families, however there can be a slightly “one size fits all” approach to teaching when class sizes are large which means that some kids catch on quicker than others. Extra tuition like the sessions Sausage received are a brilliant way to solidify knowledge that’s passed on during school time and make sure that all of the new concepts have really sunk in.

In terms of cost, the tutor who came to us would usually cost around £38 per hour, which is by no means the most expensive session on the site and could be well worth it if your child is having a lot of problems with a subject. There are also tutors who offer help with 11+, GCSE’s and A-Levels and Sam told us that, in some cases, 11+ tuition begins as young as 8 years old.

All in all, I felt like we had a really positive experience with TutorFair. Sausage felt a lot more confident even after one session and it’s something that we would definitely consider continuing with, should she need the extra help. As a final point, another thing we liked was that, if you were a normal TutorFair customer, all payments are made via the website, so there’s no awkward exchange of cash at the end of the session – this may sound like a silly little thing, but it just made me feel like I’d be a lot more comfortable about using the service in the future.

For more information on tutors in your area, visit the TutorFair site.