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...what's going on in the world of online tutoring!
Montblanc, Moleskines and Macs
I've always loved stationery. I think it's a teacher/writer thing. Propelling pencils, rubbers, paper clips, notebooks...they all offer so much potential. I never studied particularly hard at school but boy, was I organised! I spent a lot of the school summer...
Can You Make Money Tutoring Online?
Can you make money online tutoring is a question I'm asked. Often. Ten years ago I was paid the going rate for online tutoring. Or so I thought. I live in a fairly affluent area in Scotland, an area where parents are very keen for their children to do well in exams....
10 Myths About Online Tutoring
There are many myths about online tutoring- things people believe about how it works and how people will respond to it . Like many long held beliefs, many of these are simply not true and for the last 8 years now I've been trying to field these objections in a bid for...
The times they are a-changing!
Have you ever read something that instantly propelled you into the future? I had one such moment last week reading a newspaper . A local council in Scotland (where I live) is cutting costs and proposes to cut the school week from the traditional five days to just...
When It’s Too Late to Change Your Life
Sometimes I laugh at the idea that in many cultures around the world, we expect teenagers who are fresh out of school to choose a career. Not a starter job, mind you, but a career they expect to remain in for the next 40 years. Doesn’t that seem…well, positively...
What Do You think Of Me?
It's that time of year when we're approaching exams in the UK and racing towards the academic finish line. That means saying goodbye to lots of students we've (hopefully ) guided through the year to exam success . But before you do there's one more vital thing you...
TUTOR SPOTLIGHT: DR LEO EVANS
Once you're confident enough with your online tutoring skills, the next stage is to find students. Enter Dr Leo Evans, Co-founder of The Profs, Spires online tutoring and founder of BitPaper. You thought you were busy ? I caught up with Leo recently to talk about our...
TUTOR SPOTLIGHT: Vicki Marie Venn
Vicki Marie Venn tells us how she's taken control of her working life to work round her family Tell us about your background: are you a trained teacher? Yes; after my first undergraduate degree (Sociology and Social Policy) I completed a PGCE (Post-Graduate...
Want Great Testimonials? Watch this …
"Go and see Dunkirk, it's the best movie I've seen in a while ..." "Try the new Italian restaurant on the High street- it's queued out the door. Can't get a table for months..." "Need a Maths tutor? Try Fred he's great but get in early- he books up fast" Word of mouth...
Who Are You Talking To?
It's my daughter's 21st birthday party next weekend. Caterers. Marquees. The whole shebang - after all you're only 21 once I'm told. When talking to the caterers about the menu, I was struck by their approach: Who are the guests? What age? What's the party theme? What...
TUTOR SPOTLIGHT – Vaishnavi Sarathy
Another Tutor Spotlight this week - and it's a great one! Vaishnavi Sarathy of Plum Pudding Chemistry Tutoring is working only 10 hours a week, completely in control of her working life, spends quality time with her son and earns a very respectable amount of money...
Take My Lead!
You know when you go to the movies and they show trailers of movies coming soon? The best bits of the movies are always in the trailers. And that’s because the job of the trailer is to get you to pay to see the movie. There’s no point in saving the best for the movie...
Charlie, Gemma and You
A week can be a really long time can't it? Well, for my primary teacher cousin Gemma Dunne, it's been a long, sad and somewhat surreal week. Here's how it panned out - On Friday her 15 month old Golden Retriever puppy, Charlie, was unwell - lethargic, breathless...
A Kind Word
When I was at teacher training college for a year after university, the most instructive day - and there weren't many - was the day I followed a pupil all day long. A wee guy who came from a poor background, he had crisps and coke for breakfast and ate rubbish all day...
Let’s Rewrite This Script
Like most of us, I'm in a lot of tutoring Facebook Groups. At this time of year when we're headed towards exam time, naturally we start thinking about new students, filling our tutoring slots for next year, our prices for next session and maybe even raising our...
Let’s Play Big!
I've a lot of teacher friends I speak to regularly. I also read blogs written by teachers and check in with their ongoing discussions on various social media platforms. As you’d expect, the teacher community is constantly discussing ways to become better at their...
Feel Like Breaking all the Rules?
We've all known that one student who just seems to get away with everything. Clever, charming, usually possessed of a rakish smile and an incorrigible cheerfulness, this is the student who can goof off all term and still somehow pass his or her exams with flying...
Tutor Spotlight: Sally Weatherly
Here I speak to the powerhouse that is Sally Weatherly. Mother of 2 young children, a former head of physics department who took the plunge two years ago to work online. She now has a very successful and profitable online course for IB physics and a platform that...