A Tutor's Journey; Part 1

My Story; How it All Began

Have I always wanted to be a tutor?

No!

I fell into it by accident….. 28 years ago. It resulted from a chance encounter with a family friend whose son, Andrew, was struggling at school due to dyslexia; he had been told that he was on target to drastically fail Higher Biology. I was on a health-induced break from studying a medical degree in Prosthetics and Orthotics and knowing that I had studied all three sciences at school, Andrew’s mum thought I might be up to the challenge of helping him. My tutoring career began!

I thoroughly enjoyed working with Andrew and explaining the Higher concepts seemed to come naturally. My father had dyslexia, so I had no negative judgements about his additional learning needs; he was grateful for the help and we got on well. Andrew passed his Higher and was absolutely delighted. My name was passed on to others and I have never looked back!

Back then of course, there were no home computers; all my notes were hand-written and copied on a fax machine! I worked from black and white books and photocopied past papers. How times have changed! To advertise, I made an A4 poster with my home phone number (I didn’t have a mobile back then) on little detachable flaps. I always felt a youthful sense of excitement when a few weeks later I’d have to replace the advert as all the flaps were gone!

Over the years, not only have tutoring and technology changed but so has my life…. drastically! When I started, I was young (very), single, living at home with my parents and dreaming of a medical career. Never once did I envisage myself tutoring long-term. The thing is, life rarely pans out as planned.

By my early twenties, I was married and very happy but had seen my medical career hopes dashed by very poor health. In time, I would work my way through other qualifications and also go back to University but not to follow that original dream. Now however, I can contribute to so many youngsters’ dreams for future careers, and that is pretty special. I continued tutoring while learning how to be a wife and loved the fact that I could fit it around all our other commitments, socialising and travel.

A decade later, I had three amazing children and life was very hectic. I was still tutoring and was pretty well known in the area that we lived. I was thoroughly enjoying being able to be a full-time mum to my children; something that I had always wanted to do. I tutored in the evenings when the children were in bed and I loved the flexibility it afforded me. It fitted well around family life and it felt more like a hobby that I was sharing with others.

Tutoring had changed in many ways. One most notable difference was how many learners had tutors. I lived in an area served by high achieving schools, and many youngsters were under pressure to perform to an A-grade standard. In the early days, I was being asked to support pupils with specific learning needs or those who had suffered long absences from school. This had changed drastically. Of the pupils I was seeing, while many still had additional support needs, several were broken in terms of their confidence and self-esteem; sadly, this is still the same today. Not only am I sharing my passion for Biology, I am also supporting youngsters to believe that they CAN do it! It is still every bit as rewarding as it ever was, but it now has added aspects to it.