Advice

If your son or daughter is struggling with maths at school, tutoring may be the answer.

Research has shown that regular tutoring can improve a student's examination result by roughly one grade, i.e. turning a D grade into a C, or an A into an A*. But these findings are an average. Some students may improve more than this.

In my experience, the one-to-one time that a good quality tutor can offer a student cannot be beaten. The student can ask any questions they may have been unsure about asking in the classroom and the tutor can adapt the lesson precisely to the student's needs.

Ideally tutoring should continue throughout the whole school year. In this way it can compliment the student's classroom learning. Whenever the student fails to understand any of the classroom learning, the tutoring can fill in the gaps. It also helps to build a relationship between tutor and student and in this way the student's confidence will increase.

However, tutoring is not a magic bullet. The student still needs to be prepared to work hard and to expect a slow improvement over the months.