Tutoring and Coaching Services

Individual Tutoring Online and in Adelaide

• Pre-school and Early Learning Tutoring
• Primary School Tutoring
• Middle School Tutoring
• High School Tutoring
• Coaching and Mentoring for Adults and University Students

• We Understand How You Feel When Your Child Struggles With Schoolwork

  WE UNDERSTAND . . .

  It’s a tough job being a parent.

  You need to look after so many different aspects of your child’s life.

  Parenting doesn’t come with a manual.

  As parents we try to rely on teachers in schools to manage our child’s education but we soon find that the teachers rely on us to do a lot of it ourselves. Children are sent home with sight words, spelling lists, or tables to learn, or big assignments that even we find difficult. Often it is even hard to work out exactly what needs to be done. When we parents don’t know how to help our children do homework we can feel inadequate, helpless, frustrated or even angry. It can even dash all our hopes for our child’s future and make us feel like bad parents. We might even start to feel that there is something wrong with our child that can’t be fixed and give up on them.

  We can show you how to put the past behind you and build your child’s confidence and success quicker than you ever thought possible.

• We Understand How Children Feel When They Can’t Do Their Schoolwork

  If you are frustrated not being able to help your child, imagine how your child must feel not knowing how to do the work in the first place. Apart from fear, sadness, and feelings of inadequacy, many children actually feel they are bad people because they can’t do their work. This can dash their hopes for the future.

• We Understand Why Children Have Problems at School AND How To Fix Them

  Most people, including many teachers, have the ‘empty vessel’ view of education where it is assumed that the teacher’s job is to fill up the students’ minds with the knowledge they require. This perspective on learning misses the point that learning knowledge requires skills, and all skills rely on sub-skills. If some of the sub-skills are missing then it is impossible to master new knowledge. For example, it is hard to learn multiplication tables if you haven’t mastered using your auditory short-term memory to learn things.

  We are experts at taking struggling students, who others may have given up on, and changing them into high-achieving students by fixing their thinking and learning problems.

Our Educational, Coaching and Tutoring Services

• Assessment:

  We provide Diagnostic Educational Assessments to determine a person’s skill levels, and to isolate the sub-skills that need improvement at their current educational level.

• Tuition:

  We provide individual and family tuition so students who are struggling at any level can become high achieving, independent learners who are able to learn quickly and effectively for the rest of their lives. We do this by making sure people master the sub-skills required for a learning task before showing them how to work on the task.

• Language Skills:

  We provide specialist reading and writing tuition using our highly developed programs in Synthetic Phonics, Comprehension, Study Skills (in all subject areas), Essay Writing, and Speech Writing. We work with people at all levels of education, even before they start school.

• Maths:

  We provide specialist Maths and Statistics tuition at all levels from Kindergarten to University.

• Special Needs:

  We educate people with special physical, mental, social and emotional needs such as dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, speech disorders, poor eyesight, poor hearing, ADHD, etc. so they can become high achieving, independent learners who are able to learn quickly and effectively for the rest of their lives.

• Consultancy:

  We consult with schools, businesses and other organisations on educational and training matters.

Where You Can Work With Us

Distance Learning Around the World

Most of our clients live a long way away from our office so we work with them live in our online meeting rooms on the Internet. All you need is a computer with a broadband connection. No special software is needed. The tuition you receive is just as good as the tuition you receive at our office, in fact, many people prefer working over the internet because the computer tends to keep their children more focussed.

At Our Office in Adelaide, South Australia

Our office and physical classrooms are in a southern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, near Flinders University.

Who Do We Tutor and Coach?

• We tutor struggling students in the foundation skills they need to succeed.
• Once the basic skills have been mastered we coach students so they can stay at the top of their classes.
• We teach students how to excel at education and so reach their full potential.
• We work with people at all levels of their education.

Tutoring for Pre-School Children and Early Learning Programs

Pre-School, Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 (Ages: 3 to 7)

Parents with older children we have helped always seek our assistance getting their younger children ready for school. Make sure your child gets a flying start to school too!

Particularly important at this stage:

• Speech and listening skills
• Initial phonics and spelling skills
• Concentration
• Social and emotional skills

Tutoring for Primary School Students

Years: 3 to 6 (Ages: 7 to 12)

As soon as you notice signs that your child is not coping with parts of his/her schoolwork it is important that you act quickly. If intellectual problems are left untreated they will become blockages that will slow down the social and emotional development of your child. This will compound their problems with schoolwork and homework.

Some key warning signs at this stage:

• Not wanting to go to school
• Not wanting to talk about what has happened at school
• Forgetting to bring homework home
• Hard to get them started with their homework
• Crying or getting angry when you help them with their homework
• Complaining of being bored
• Doesn’t like reading
• Problems with spelling
• Can’t learn multiplication tables or keeps forgetting them
• Has difficulty retaining information more than a few days
• Sleep problems
• Stomach and digestion problems

Tutoring for Middle School Students

Years: 7, 8, 9 (Ages: 11 to 15)

These are the years when children should be taught how to study and become independent learners. It is not enough that they have study skills, it is even more important that they get into the habit of using their study skills daily, BEFORE doing their homework, EVERY DAY. The principle is to LEARN FIRST and put into PRACTICE SECOND.

We provide special programs to ensure that Maths, Science, English Literature and English Communication Skills are developed to a high level so that students are doing well in all their courses so that they are well prepared for Senior High School and beyond.

Children who haven’t mastered the basic Primary School Skills of talking, listening, reading, comprehension, writing, spelling and basic maths skills will really start to struggle at this stage. Beware, some children are able mask their problems by compensating for their weaknesses using other skills such as relying heavily on visual memory and rote learning skills – but these only work in the short term – eventually the child will hit a brick wall and grades will start to drop.

Some key warning signs at this stage:

• Not reading for pleasure
• Struggling with Maths (this is often the first subject to crash)
• Not bringing homework home
• Regularly losing instruction sheets and their work
• Trouble getting started with their homework
• Grades of a C or less
• An unexpected drop in grades in some subjects
• Fears and worries
• Sleep and stomach problems
• Social and emotional problems

Tutoring for High School and College Students

Years: 10, 11, 12, 13 (Age: 15 to 18+)

Students are expected to be independent learners by this stage. This means that they have the skills to learn new material easily and retain it, they have a good vocabulary, and they are competent communicators and mathematicians (good maths skills are required in the humanities not just the sciences, especially in the areas of statistics and research methods).

It is not uncommon for a student’s grades to drop dramatically at this time because the focus of testing at this stage is more on full understanding and long term learning, so students who rely on last minute study before exams will find it harder and harder. Another factor is that the emphasis of education at this stage turns more to the application of knowledge, so if a student has forgotten material from previous years they will not be able to cope.

Some key warning signs at this stage:

• Not reading for pleasure
• Struggling with Maths or Science (these are often the first subjects to crash)
• Not bringing homework home
• Regularly losing instruction sheets and their work
• Trouble getting started with their homework
• Not doing study before starting their homework
• Grades of a C or less
• An unexpected drop in grades in some subjects
• Sleep and stomach problems
• Social and emotional problems

Coaching and Mentoring for Adults and University Students

We provide advanced study, writing and communication skill training for students doing professional courses, Masters Degrees and Doctorates.

We provide coaching and mentoring for both employed and unemployed adults to help them make changes in their careers and personal lives.