It is interesting that they are accepting tutors in all subjects, so you don’t necessarily have to be an English or Maths tutor. Although I think this may be difficult for some tutors and the student’s may suffer if they don’t have an experienced tutor in their subject. Many tutors seem to finding work through word of mouth or their children go to the school they work at.

So far I have done the separate reading and writing courses, which I found very useful.   The other two courses I’ve done are the ‘One to One Introductory’ course which would be useful if you were coming to the tutoring for the first time or were teaching a subject you hadn’t taught before. The ‘Addressing Achievement in One to One tuition’ looks at teaching methods and emphasises the need to be a reflective teacher (something we should do anyway), but it’s nice to be reminded. The main focus is adapting teaching as you go along and not to simply have your ten lessons ready as you would as a class teacher. You need to look at what individual students are interested in and what they specifically need to learn.

I usually focus on improving students’ sentence structure, punctuation, spelling (giving them a list to work through at home), vocabulary and expression even though these do not carry the most weight mark-wise in English – but they are more quantifiable. They look at a range of different texts and I check their exercise books in other subjects to see that they are applying what they have learnt.

Some of us were asking why you need to do the ‘Child Protection’ training if you have already done this at your school. You need this to get the One to One stages one and two certificates. They have cancelled the dates to do this training in Brighton but I have been told that some new ones will be added shortly. To get info on what trainings are available here are the websites:

http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupCalendar.asp?GroupID=664856

http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupWorkspaces.asp?GroupId=583397&WorkspaceId=1426197

It is a shame that the government have put so much money into getting this One to One training up and running. It is not only the students who will miss out but also teachers like myself who have spent a lot of time and effort creating schemes of work and learning new skills. A lot of money has been spent on training courses (I have attended three). It would be a false economy to scrap this just one and  half years into the scheme. Not to mention the teachers that will now be out of work!

The local authorities seem to be using supply agencies, which is how I found work. The problem with going through a supply agency is that you cannot contribute to your teacher’s pension. The local authorities also have to pay the agency’s fees. I know that many schools are using their full-time English and Maths teachers to do the extra tuition as well.

Perhaps if anyone out there did get work via the TDA route they would like to comment?

The books are: Language to inform, explain and describe; Language to persuade, argue and advise; Language to analyse, review and comment; and Language of Shakespeare. They are really neat books as they are small enough to fit into a bag and carry around and you can buy them cheaply (second hand) on Amazon.

I would be happy to share my teaching resources/ schemes of work with anyone. Please just drop me an email. Also if you have any ideas or resources you could recommend or would like to share that would be great.

The scheme was launched last year to help underachieving students. So far I have been working with Years 7, 8 and 9 but I have met some tutors who have been working with GCSE students.

There has been some misunderstanding as to what its purpose is. This was cleared up for me at a reading and writing training session I attended in Eastbourne. It is not for tutors to help students with their current work, homework or GCSE coursework but to design a scheme of work for their individual students, working on the areas that their class teachers have identified as target areas.

I would definitely recommend the training session if it is offered to you. You can view training sessions on your local authority website. For example, mine is the Sussex LEA.

In the school portal you also get access to the forms you need. Even if you are an experienced teacher, there are some very useful tips on how to assess students (that can save time!). It is especially important if you are going to be observed by an outside body, which they are supposed to do every term.