Tutoring Chat & Coffee: What I've learned in 20+ years about working with children
The Clara James Approach to learningShow Notes
In this episode, I share my journey into supporting neurodiverse children and how it all began with a concern about my own daughter over 20 years ago. After being told by a school that dyslexia was simply "an excuse for laziness", I became determined to learn everything I could about how children learn differently. Since then, I have worked in mainstream schools, autism provision, early years settings, and tutoring, supporting children with a wide range of learning needs. In this podcast, I d...
More from The Clara James Approach to learning
Clara has been working with me on the launch of the new membership for tutors (Join our franchise and build a flexible tutoring business) that we are launching in November. Life is full on right now but it’s exciting. I think starting something new always is. When I first started tutoring, I used to do a formal lesson plan that I would then send onto the parents. I would state that it was just meant as a guide, but it gave them an overview of our goals for that session, keeping them in the lo...
I've been tutoring for about 14 and a half years now, and in that time I've had some wonderful experiences, met some fantastic families and had quite a few moments that you really couldn't make up. Today, I thought I'd share three of those moments with you. There's the time a folder full of paperwork went flying across a farm, the time a dog decided to redesign my shoe, and the time two little magnets on the side of my car helped change the direction of my business. They might sound like thre...
If you are thinking about becoming a tutor you probably have questions: Do I need to be a teacher? Do I need a degree? Am I too young/too old? What if I've only helped my own children? Do I need to know every subject? Can I get started with just a few hours a week? In this episode I answer these questions with what I've learned since I started Clara James Tutoring 14+ years ago. If you are thinking about becoming a tutor and would like some support, we will help you in any way we can:&n...
When a Child Won't Do the Work — Have We Asked Why? What happens when a child doesn't understand something but doesn't feel confident enough to ask for help? In this episode, I reflect on two recent conversations that got me thinking about children's confidence, communication and the expectations we sometimes place on them. I share the story of a child whose whiteboard pen stopped working during a lesson, and how something seemingly insignificant became a much bigger emotional challenge. We a...
Earlier today I unexpectedly had an hour free and, rather than doing something particularly sensible with it, I decided to go Live on Facebook. Nobody joined me... So I spent about 15 minutes happily talking to myself about how Clara James started, where it's got to, and where I hope it's going. And afterwards I thought actually, that's a story I've never really told properly here. So that's what today's episode is. There's nothing I'm trying to sell you. I just want to tell you the sto...