Our approach to tuition

All of our lessons start off with an engagement hook. This is something that gets students interested in the lesson. Pupils should know what they are about to learn and why they are about to learn; in other words, why is it important they learn this lesson. Once students understand why they are learning a topic and why it is important, students are more engaged and more receptive to learning as the learning now has been contextualised. 

Part of the engagement involves tutors asking students what they already know about a topic (prior learning); when a student feel they know something about a topic already, the lesson becomes less daunting and more accessible. 

Every single lesson taught at Stem Learning Tutors has been planned to match the GCSE/ A Level specification.  This means everything taught is important for the exams. All our lessons are designed to be accessible. For example, different types of digital resources have been used, lessons have been differentiated, etc. 

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We do not assume all students have understood everything the tutor has explained. This is where AfL comes in. Tutors have been trained to use AfL techniques to ascertain how much a student has understood before moving on with the next part of the lesson. This can involve a variety of techniques from in-lesson questioning, quizzes, etc.

Crucially, assessment for learning occurs live and in-class so the teaching can be adjusted instantly to meet learner's needs. (This is different to end-of-unit assessments).

 

It is possible for students to understand a topic well, but still perform poorly in exams. There can be many reasons for this, such as nerves, misreading a question, etc. However, one of the biggest reasons is that students are unfamiliar with exam style questions. In fact, we consider this a skill in its own right. We deploy exam style questions to get our students familiar with exam command words, how to structure exam questions, timed-conditions, etc.  Our senior tutors, who are also examiners for major exam boards, oversee this aspect of our lessons.

This goes hand-in-hand with point four above. Many students are unfamiliar with the mark scheme. For example, some students may write 10 points correctly and expect to receive 10 marks. But this is not how exam marking works, and many students do not have an understanding of this. At Stem Learning Tutors, we use exam style questions and mark schemes to go over the work regularly.