At what age should I get my child tutored?

At Frontrunner Learning Centres, we teach school-aged children. Frontrunner Learning Centres redress learning issues and helps your child get in front and stay in front. We do this as an addition to the student’s regular school work. Therefore we generally do not teach preschool children, adults or University students. (Some centres offer “learning” help for adults and uni-students). There is no genuinely optimal time to start tuition – since every child is unique and has unique needs, each child needs support at different times. Usually, the best time to get help is before you notice that your child needs help. Unless you are a mind reader, you cannot know for sure. That’s one of the reasons for our free no-obligation assessment.

How are the Lessons Run?

After enrolling, each child joins a group of up to 6 students. Why 6? If a teacher needs to give 10 minutes of direct instruction, six students will take up 1 hour. We provide 80 minutes so that we can make sure each child gets their fair share of attention. The students work in mixed-age and grade levels. Grouping students of similar age or needs is counter-productive because we lose the individual approach and teach a lesson like it is in the classroom. Instead, your child works from their own individualised programme closely supervised by their tutor, who is most able to fulfil your child’s needs.

In summary, your child has their programme, attends at the same time every week with other children who each have their programme. Regular weekly attendance gives security, routine and your child knows that other children are developing new skills – just like they are. To ensure they never forget this critical skill, some of our centres drop everything and perform a times tables speed challenge on the hour every session no matter what subject or level they attend.

How is that different from places?

While many coaches run one-to-one tuition or run large groups or classrooms, Frontrunner Learning Centres use educationalists’ research to determine the correct size and type of group for each student. Educational studies show that, in a one-hour session, a student should receive no more than 10 minutes of direct instruction. That means that 50 minutes is spent working while 10 minutes listening. More time listening means your child is not working. That’s a waste of money.

Many parents believe that one-to-one tutoring is the best. For some children, that’s correct. That’s why we are flexible and can organise such lessons for the children who need them. For most children, however, that is not necessary. It’s not even appropriate.

Imagine a situation where a child gets 10 minutes of direct teaching during a 60-minute lesson. The teacher is likely to get bored and intervene unnecessarily, not allowing the student to respond. We want autonomous, responsible students who have the self-confidence to persevere and not rely on the tutor just to tell them the answer. Further, if your child learns to over-rely on the teacher, your child will never learn to become an independent learner.

The setting at Frontrunner Learning Centres gives children the best opportunity to learn and transfer that learning to school.

At Frontrunner Learning Centres, we want to do ourselves out of a job by making your child not need us.

Do Problems Fix Themselves?

A problem rarely fixes itself. Your child’s issues with a particular aspect of their learning are likely to remain into adulthood unless we address it. We have all received the wrong change in a shop or cafe. This person has poor maths skills from childhood, and they still have poor maths skills as an adult. Fixing a problem sooner has lifelong benefits.

Schooling runs sequentially – learn something, and, further on, you use that learning to do the next version of the same topic, then a more complex interpretation and so on. If you don’t get it right the first time, it gets harder and harder. Getting the problem fixed earlier makes your child happier at school and home. Success makes people happy – failure doesn’t.

If this sounds like the kind of professionalism you would like to see in your child’s tuition CALL 1300 851 062 or click here to send us a message.