Bridging the Learning Gap with MyTutor

{This is a collaborative post}

What a funny old year this is turning out to be, and of course, I mean funny, weird as adverse to funny and making me laugh. The children have now been home since mid-March and the girls are slowly (but hopefully) surely badgering away with their school work via the online system. I've been quite impressed with their school, who keep setting work and checking in with them to ensure they are OK.

It's a bit of a different story for JJ, my 16-year-old though. He should have just been finishing his GCSE examinations, but of course, they have been cancelled. So, in reality, he hasn't done any schooling for about three months and he still has another three months until college starts in September (hopefully!). He is the kind of lad who has a thirst for learning, so he'll often watch educational programs and listen to podcasts just for enjoyment and that's reassuring for me.

Thankfully he is a really bright boy, so I'm not too worried but had he have been a different kind of kid, I'm sure I would be much more concerned. Six months without any formal learning is a long time to go and that's why I was so pleased to let him have some online tutoring with MyTutor. He'll be studying Maths and Further Maths at A-level, along with Computer Science and Law, and realistically maths is a skill that needs continual input and practise to keep your skill level up.

When I first chatted to JJ about doing some online tutoring, he really wasn't interested. He didn't think it would be interesting and he said he probably wouldn't like the tutor. Nothing like having an open mind, right? However, I'm pleased to say that he is loving it and asked me for more sessions.

Read on to check out mine and his full review of our start to end experience with MyTutor.

JJ is Outgrowing my Maths Knowledge, Help!

I am starting to realise that within a short amount of time I am going to be out of my comfort zone when it comes to JJ and his maths.  He is currently 8 and in year 3 at school but once a week he goes for a maths session with the year 5 kids and learns at their level.  This is because he generally does well in maths and needs to be stretched.  This has been fine up to now but suddenly things are getting much tougher and he is coming home saying he is not enjoying it so much and can I help to explain some things to him, like the chunking method for division…  oh dear, I have no idea what that is!

I am an educated woman, I have a masters degree (with distinction don’t you know! Lol)  but generally I do well in the areas that I enjoy and understand rather than those which are taught in general education at school.  Towards the end of my own schooling I did not really appreciate the lessons and I hated maths, I had a teacher that I could not understand and this meant I ended up with a D grade GCSE maths and a real gap in my knowledge, algebra, Pythagoras, trigonometry, long division – I have no real idea how to do any of them.  Give me a profit and loss account and balance sheet and I can happily analyse it and offer areas for questioning but the basics of maths – nope, not my strong point.