Once upon a time in a cave there lived a magic cat whose power was to fly as fast as a spear. The cat had a fluffy tail, black eyes and grey fur. One day a person called Mimi, whose power was mind control, came and wiped out the cat’s memory so he would forget he could fly. The cat was a fast thinker and he remembered his power and so he flew off back to his cave. The magic cat lived happily ever after.
By Arun – aged 7.
Filed under creative writing, Learning, Posts, Short Story
Quite often students begin the year in a casual stride and who is to blame them? After all they have just come off holidays (about 1½ month’s worth). I come from a sports training background and I can tell you that an athlete who wants to perform well will not take two months off their training year. The repercussions are too great as they will lose too much form and have to work way too hard to get back to square one.
A dedicated rugby player will take one month off and during that time will be maintaining his/her aerobic level of fitness with moderate exercise. When January comes around he/she is ready to start full swing on improving their strengths, building on fitness and working on skills. That is how you stay ahead of the pack.
I often wonder why students don’t undertake the same planning when it comes to academic performance. Most students and parents of students are willing to let the achievements of the final months of the previous year disappear through resting the brain after the school year. The brain does not need that much time to recover. In fact that length of time of recovery is detrimental. The last month of knowledge learned prior to exams has been lost and has to be relearned in the first month of the new year!
During long Christmas holidays many students maintained their academic conditioning by attending the Tuition Room at Ferny Hills. They used their academic coach (their tutor) to work on their weaknesses from last year while others used the time to get a head start on the subject matter they knew was coming this year. These guys were staying ahead of the pack. Is it worthwhile? You bet it is. They will go into the new year confident and stress free. They have locked in with their coach who is helping them to perform at their peak
Filed under Learning, Short Story
The process of choosing a tutor can be daunting and confusing. Generally when a parent is told by a teacher their child is struggling it comes as sudden news to the parent but has been viewed as a gradual process by the teacher or various teachers. One wonders why measures were not taken sooner to halt this process.
For whatever reason your student now requires tuition so how do you choose? I have seen many one-on-one tutors who do very fine work helping the student with maths at their current level and at times this is successful. School results improve and grades come up, but this system has its limitations.
Learning maths is a progressive process building upon previous knowledge of various maths strands until eventually the student is able to solve complex problems by drawing on their various knowledge strands. If there is a hole in their knowledge strands this makes solving these complex problems more difficult. This hole may have appeared years before and not been repaired.
The tuition process you choose should be able to identify these knowledge holes and plug them. By doing this your student is armed with complete knowledge that allows them to move to the top percentage of their class.
Your tutor should be able to identify the time when your child started to have difficulties; set up a program to begin at the point of trouble; move progressively forward plugging up other holes as they are identified; monitor the student’s progress (we do ours daily); provide progressive reports (our parents receive monthly progress reports on students); and set goals that engage and reward students (this keeps them motivated).
This method takes time but produces the best long term results.
Filed under Learning, Posts, Uncategorized
XtraMile Tuition Strategies (North Brisbane) - 0415 049461 