There’s something similar in the fine art world. Sculpture is at the pinnacle and is regarded by The Establishment as the highest form of art, the most important and valuable. At the very bottom are things like pottery, knitting and basketry – derogatorily named “craft” by The Establishment – not even worthy of being recognised as art. Landscape used to be considered a much lowlier artform than portraiture (not anymore thanks to JMW Turner).

The Tutor Subject/Age Hierarchy

Non exam-based tuition for primary children is the pottery and basket weaving of tuition, whereas A Level or elite private school exam prep is the sculpture.

Can we please take a moment to reflect how utterly ridiculous (and discriminatory) this is, and how it creates a glass ceiling for what tutors feel they can charge?

And yes, it annoys me because according to this hierarchy, I’m right at the bottom. Which is, to be frank, an insult!

Research is clear that THE most important stage in a child’s learning is the early and primary years. According to this logic, I should be at the top of the hierarchy. However, because working with young children is so infused with patriarchal beliefs that it is menial women’s work (I write more about this here), it is seen as just that. Menial, easy, not important, anyone can tutor primary, helping them become secure with the key foundations for all future learning (reading, writing, maths) is not as important as passing an exam, especially an exam for a top private school or university.

I’m not saying we all hold this belief dear to our hearts, I just think it’s become so conditioned into us that we don’t even notice or question it.

However, I have noticed it and questioned it.

If No Hierarchy – What?

I don’t believe it would be logical to switch the hierarchy so what I tutor was now at the top. Hierarchies don’t help anyone. They keep large groups of people small and suppressed while a minority get the riches.

I believe that ALL learning is equally valid and important, and the abilities needed to tutor someone in learning that thing are equally skillful – it’s just that the skills needed are different.

The skills needed to help a child pass the 11+ are different to those needed to teach someone to play the piano for pleasure, but the tutors are JUST as skilled in helping that person with their EQUALLY valid learning.

I decided to throw this outdated, patriarchal, and elitist nonsense in the bin and start charging according to my qualifications (I have lots of them), skills (I have lots of them) and experience (I have lots of it).

It works for me and it can work for you, and together we can move the tuition industry into the twenty-first century and make it be valued as the highly skilled profession that it is (or should be). That ALL learning is valid and important and the skills needed to help someone with that require training, development and nuance.

I’ve finished recording the videos for my course 10 Steps to Changing How You Charge and once I’ve worked out the tech (and, ironically, what to charge!) it will be available so you too charge appropriately for the highly skilled, top quality work you do, based on your qualifications, skills and experience, not what or who you tutor.

Sign up to my newsletter and/or join my free Facebook Group to be first to find out when it’s available.

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Where does undervaluing of education come from?

As with everything, to understand it we have to look at the history (my favourite subject!)  Let’s go back to the late nineteenth century when schooling became compulsory for children aged 5-13. 

When elementary education became compulsory in 1880, and free in 1892 to educate “the masses”, the teaching profession as we know it today came into existence. 

Prior to this time, children who went to school, or received an education via a private tutor, were from families who could afford to pay for their child’s education.  I say children, I mean boys.  Middle- and upper-class families who paid to educate their daughters were rare, and even if girls did receive an education, it was often very restricted compared to their brothers’. The teachers/tutors they would have had were mostly (if not exclusively) men.  Because education was elite.  It wasn’t available to everyone.  It wasn’t about masses of children, but developing the select few.

Working class families needed income and children were sent out to earn their keep from a young age.  School was not part of their world.

Unlike other professions developing at the time as a result of the Industrial Revolution, such as medicine and the law, which came with high status and a high salary to match because they dealt with important things like life and death and dealing with criminals, which were only open to men (women were unable to attend university to train in these professions), teaching was not accorded the same status.

Why?  Because it was working with children.  And working-class children at that.  Children = women’s work.  Women’s work = caring and menial – less important than the life and death, saving society from criminals work of the men. Women’s work = we don’t need to pay them as much as the men.  The younger the children, the more menial the work is perceived to be.  Of course, there were male teachers too, but because teaching was an option for women, it was afforded a lower social status. 

And we are still living under the consequences of this patriarchal belief system 130+ years later. 

How this impacts what tutors charge today

Many, if not most tutors today come from a teaching background.  According to government research (which I normally take with a big pinch of salt, but it seems about right in this case) 75.5% of teachers in the UK are female (even higher in primary schools).  However, only 38% of headteachers in state secondary schools are female.  Women are at the chalkface; men are in positions of power.

Following these statistics through to their logical conclusion, a large proportion of private tutors will be female. 

We come into tuition from a profession which is chronically underfunded, which has one of the highest rates of unpaid overtime, who work some of the longest hours for some of the worst pay in any OECD country (www.neu.org.uk), where “doing it for the children” is used to justify overwork and underpay in the form of toxic positivity.

This becomes ingrained into us.  It is normal.  It is how it is.  It comes with the job.  We stop even noticing that we are undercharging and working for free because it is so normal to us it is practically invisible.

We also think we can’t charge as much as other service providers because “it’s for children”.  We are a caring profession.  If you charge well you stop being caring. You are greedy, cruel and unkind.

Or so we are conditioned to think.

Why what we think about what we “should” charge is nonsense.

It’s nonsense, btw.  I charge well (compared to most tutors).  It doesn’t make me cruel or heartless or greedy.  The amount I care is not reduced by how much I charge. In fact, I am able to help more vulnerable children and support charities, organisations and ethical businesses as a result of charging well for my service, because now I can afford to.  If anything, charging well has enabled me to show I care more, not less.

It’s time to challenge this chronic undervaluing (in all senses of the word) of caring professions such as tuition.  As educators, we know how vital education is.  Any problem society faces, from obesity to climate change, the key to making things better is always education.  Education is the key to moving out of poverty, better physical and mental health, financial security…  The list goes on about how and why education is absolutely fundamental to society.  It is as important as the life and death work of doctors, and the law and order of lawyers and barristers.

Yet because education is about children, and a predominantly female workforce, and those “menial”, wishy-washy, “feminine” traits of caring and nurturing young minds, it is not valued by the holders of power (the patriarchy).  This trickles down to society; insidiously, subtly over many years.  It is so ingrained it becomes deeply embedded in our beliefs about our own value.

Teaching is not something anyone can do.  It requires training, deep understanding of how people learn, and skill in applying this appropriately.  It is a very highly skilled job. 

How to start shifting your mindset around charging for tuition

1. Charge appropriately for your qualifications, skill and experience. If you have undertaken training to develop your practise and skills, you have invested in yourself.  This needs to be reflected in your price.  Charge appropriately for your qualifications, skill and experience.  The more qualified, skilled and experienced you are, the higher your fees. It has nothing to do with where you live, what age or subject you teach, or what gender you identify as. Charge appropriately for your qualifications, skill and experience and this starts to raise us, and our profession, up.
2. Recognise that you are worthy and deserve to be paid appropriately for your service. I tutor because I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of education and love supporting children in their learning – giving them opportunities and a brighter future.  But not at the expense of my wellbeing – physical, mental and financial.  I can’t support them properly if my needs are not being met.  It’s basic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but the system only wants us to apply it “to the children”. 

Just because the service we provide is for children, it doesn’t mean we should charge less than for services for adults. This comes from the toxic positivity of “doing it for the children”.  What this phrase actually means is, “do everything you can for the children, at all costs to yourself.  The child is more important than you in every way.”  This is not true and dangerous.  The most important person in a classroom?  A qualified teacher. 

Charging well and being caring are not mutually exclusive

Caring professions are essential (as the pandemic and recent strike action highlights), and women are drawn to them, yet because of the patriarchal conditioning around this type of work which really took hold during the Industrial Revolution, women continue to be undervalued and receive lower pay.

And when we become tutors, either self-employed or via an agency, we don’t appear to be questioning the chronically low hourly rates, compared to other professions which require equally qualified and highly-skilled people to do them well; or the amount of work we do for free through the normality of charging by the hour (read why I don’t charge by the hour here). By continuing to work in this way we continually undervalue ourselves and our profession, perpetuating the problem.

By charging well for my service I’m saying:

This service is important

This service delivers life-changing transformations

This service requires a high level of training and skill

I deserve to be paid well for my qualifications, skill and experience, regardless of my gender.

I’m going to finish with a quote from Phillipa Perry, psychotherapist and author, taken from the podcast “The Kindness Economy by Mary Portas”:

“It’s culturally implanted that we [women] do the caring and we need to change the culture… I think caring should be as valued as a trait, in men, and in women, as much as being able to add up is.”

For more information about mindset for tutors, follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

The post Why what we charge in the tuition industry is a feminist issue appeared first on Karen Lander - The Top Cat Tutor.

If you look at your child’s maths homework or pop into their classroom, you may notice that the way maths is taught today looks nothing like it did when you were at school.

This can be unsettling for many parents because they don’t understand the new methods and don’t feel confident helping their child.  They may also question if their child is being appropriately challenged or if the new ways of doing things are any good.

Maths is taught so differently today because our knowledge and understanding of how children learn and understand maths has developed.  This is a good thing.  Just as you would want your doctor to be prescribing the most up-to-date treatments based on cutting-edge research (which might not be medication, but perhaps talking therapy or exercise), schools should be keeping up to date with the latest, cutting-edge research on how children learn and understand mathematics, and teaching in-line with this.

How is maths taught in primary schools today?

Let’s start with the word maths.  Maths is reasoning and problem-solving about problems in the world around us using logic.  What we were mostly taught at school under the name “maths” was actually closer to “arithmetic” in the form of memorising and solving number facts and calculation methods to be recalled at speed.  

Arithmetic is a branch of mathematics – it is not mathematics in and of itself.  And the speed thing is just something schools seem to have decided was important decades ago. 

Professional mathematicians are not always quick at solving arithmetic questions, and if they are, it is because they have excellent number sense – they can play around with and manipulate numbers.  They understand how numbers work.  When Rachel Riley works out the number round on Countdown in under 5 seconds, it’s because she has excellent number sense – she knows how to play around with the numbers to find the solution.  She isn’t just recalling facts, she’s applying her knowledge and understanding of number.  She is using logic to solve a problem.

What is “Mastery Maths”?

Most primary schools (and increasingly secondary schools) are now teaching a subject that fits the definition of “maths” much better – with arithmetic skills alongside –  and they are doing this using a method of teaching maths called “mastery maths”.

This teaching method originated in Singapore (one of the highest-ranking areas in the world for maths teaching) and began to be adopted in the UK about 8 years ago.  The school I was working in at the time was one of the first in Gloucestershire to implement this method of teaching.

The principles of mastery teaching are very different to how you would have been taught maths (and how I was taught to teach maths), and align with what maths actually is, and how children learn and develop an understanding of maths concepts. 

When my school introduced Mastery Maths, it really blew my mind and I didn’t think it would work after over ten years of teaching in ways that are perhaps more recognisable to parents. 

After just a few months teaching this way, I was totally converted and wished I’d been taught maths this way at school.  It is a much better way of developing maths skills that align with child development and ensures children understand what they are doing.  It teaches skills that are relatable to everyday life, and also the reasoning and problem-solving skills employers are, and most probably will be, looking for in the future.

Principles of Mastery Maths

Mastery Maths teaching is based on the principles that everyone can learn and enjoy maths.  It is about reasoning and making connections between concepts.  It is about developing a deep and secure understanding of key ideas that are needed to understand future learning.

It is about understanding how and why numbers work and connect, having mathematical dexterity, and being able to link concepts together.  For example understanding that multiplication and division are linked, and in turn, understanding that division is linked to fractions, and in turn, understanding that fractions, decimals and percentages are different ways of representing numbers less than 1. 

These skills set children up for success in any future mathematical study, and the use of maths in everyday life, far better than how maths used to be taught.  Most people disliked maths and find it hard to engage with because we were taught how to do something with no understanding of why it worked or why it was necessary or how it relates to other things, or that speed was a really important aspect (pressure of having to give an answer in a set time triggers our stress response and shuts the brain down into survival mode – not helpful!)

Mastery Maths teaching methods

In Mastery Maths – children are taught the same concept all together, broken down into small steps so that children build on previous learning and make connections.

This whole class approach makes people think that brighter children are not being challenged and children who are struggling are not supported.  This is not the case. Differentiation is still happening, but in much more subtle and effective ways.  Children who grasp the concept quickly are challenged by solving problems and reasoning about the concept, in more and more depth – they keep digging deeper and deeper into it so they have a solid understanding. Children requiring more help are supported with apparatus, different ways of presenting the concept to find a way that clicks for them, and repetition to practise and consolidate learning, alongside immediate, targeted teaching in small groups.

Research is very clear that putting children into ability groups and giving them tasks that create a ceiling on their ability holds children back and sends the message “this is all I think you will be capable of doing – don’t even try what that other table are doing”.  It impedes their learning, not develops it.  Expecting all children to be able to learn something (some will get there quicker than others) shows children they are capable and able to achieve.  And they do! You can read more about this research on my blog here.

The way concepts are presented is where most parents will come into contact with mastery maths.  You may see bar models, whole-part models, images of apparatus such as Numicon, place value counters or dienes apparatus.  These are all ways of representing a problem.  They are not methods like column addition or long division.  They help children visualise number problems and see them in different ways and how different connections can be made.  This helps learning not hinders it.  They will be taught the “traditional” methods, but, taking division as great example, diving straight into short or long division when children don’t understand that division is “sharing equally”, and firstly building a deep understanding of what this means through various representations, and then understanding we can divide through “repeated subtraction”, before moving onto the “traditional” methods– means that most children will struggle to understand what they are doing and therefore won’t remember the method.

By deeply understanding what dividing is and having done it in different (often less efficient, but more conceptually obvious ways) helps children take the step up to formal (“traditional”) methods because they understand why that method works.  The “ah ha” moments happen and they remember the formal method better, and if not, they have other methods to fall back on instead. They are able to access maths because they have a number toolkit.

Why not just teach them one method?

My Year 6 teacher always said “there is no right or wrong way to do maths” and she was spot on.  It doesn’t matter how a child gets to an answer if they have a method that works for them and they understand it.  There are a multitude of ways of reaching a solution – none is “better” than the other, although some are more efficient. It is important to develop an understanding of “efficient methods” but that is all part of the mastery process.

Why not keep things as they have always been? I’m OK at maths.

To return to my doctor’s analogy.  A few decades ago, if you had a bad back, doctors would have told you to lie down still.  Now, due to research and professional development of doctors, they will now tell you to move around as much as possible.  When this was a new idea it would have felt counter-intuitive and weird and “that can’t possibly work?!”

The way maths is taught is just the same.  The old ways are not necessarily the most helpful ways.  Just because something has been done a certain way for a long time, doesn’t mean it’s the right way going forward, in light of new research. 

Teaching methods are constantly being refined due to new research about how children learn. Teaching things the way they always have been is as unhelpful, and even as damaging as, prescribing treatments for medical issues which the research now shows impedes rather than helps.

How to help your child with maths:

If you feel unsure about helping your child using these methods you can:

• Ask your school for help in understanding the methods – many schools run parent information sessions to explain them.
• Ask your child to explain it to you.  If they can, it shows they have a really good understanding of the concept.
• Don’t beat yourself up.  You are not a qualified teacher and aren’t expected to understand these methods inside out.  Encourage your child to think back to their lessons and have a go.  Developing independence in learning this way actually helps learning, not hinders it, especially if they make mistakes (remember, mistakes are wonderful things and are needed for connections in the brain to be made).
• Read my other blog about how to help children with their learning here.

I use mastery maths methods in my tuition to develop a deep and secure understanding of maths concepts and to tie in with methods being used in schools so that children make links instead of being confused.

Contact me if I can help your child develop a love of maths.

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In a matter of weeks, it was clear this was not enough.  I realised that if I lived 20 miles away in Cheltenham I could easily charge another £10+ per hour.  My rate of pay was lower because of where I lived, even though I work online and location is irrelevant.  This seemed unfair!  After a few months I upped my price to £30/hour, nobody batted an eyelid and I rumbled on for 6 months or so.

Why charging by the hour didn’t work

During this time, I became fully booked.  I was tutoring every evening from 3.30pm until 7.30pm Monday to Thursday and until 5.30pm on Friday.  I was spending all my mornings planning sessions.  Once I took off money for the tax pot (just in case I owed any), business expenses and my own “personal survival budget” – my essential living bills – I had nothing left to pay myself with.  I was literally working to pay the bills.  Nothing more. 

This was not the plan.

I felt like I was back in teaching, working all hours (not as many as a teacher, but more than I was getting paid for and more than I wanted to), doing most of the work for free.  All the session prep and planning was not covered by my hourly rate – that was literally for the time I am working with the child. Add on all the time I spent on running a professional, proper business such as social media, training, marketing, networking, and more than half my working week was totally unpaid. 

When I left the teaching profession in summer 2020, broken, with chronic stress and depression, I promised I would prioritise my own wellbeing going forward.  No more working to burn out, no more not being valued for the work I do, no more working for free.  I wanted:

-flexibility to work when I want, how I want.

– to make a good income, at least equivalent to my part-time M6 teacher salary to start with.

– To look after my wellbeing.  I come first.  I value myself.

Tutoring for 15 hours a week, with at least that again on top for free, with no time to nurture and grow my business at £30 an hour was not sustainable in meeting these goals.

Charge for skills not time

By summer 2021 I was seriously frustrated and wanted to change up how I did things.  I’d been tutoring full-time for a year, and was not even earning the equivalent of an ECT.  I knew it would take time to reach a salary level on par with what I earned as a teacher, but equally, I didn’t see why it would have to take years.  I’ve been working in primary education for 20 years – I’ve put in a lot of graft already.  My business might be new, but my skills in doing it are expert and advanced.

I began to notice what other service providers were charging: 

My hairdresser – £40 for a cut and blow dry; a local copy writer, £90 for a power hour, or £250 a month for a done-for-you package; a beauty therapist – £40+ for most treatments; coaches – double my rate at the bottom end. 

At the time, I was having hypnotherapy to help with a phobia.  I was paying her (very happily) £50 for my hour long sessions.  She had a sliding scale, the lowest being £40/hour.  A few years earlier I had seen a counsellor and paid her £40 for 50 minutes. 

It struck me that what these people were providing was not all that different to what I do.  Highly skilled professionals who have trained and worked hard to develop their expertise.  They move people from point A to point B using this skill and expertise. And they were charging a lot more than the average hourly rate for a qualified and experienced tutor.

I also became interested in how many service providers didn’t charge per hour.  They sold packages for a fixed price.  They weren’t selling their time, they were selling their skills.  I came across this more and more – selling your time is unstainable and outdated.  It’s based on Victorian “clocking in and out” systems, being paid for the time you stood at your “machine”. 

This is not the world we live in.  We live in the 21st century, not the 19th. People choose me as their child’s tutor because I have excellent knowledge of primary learning and know how to encourage children, build their confidence and help them understand the foundations of concepts that will hold them in good stead for the rest of their life – my skills and experience.  They aren’t paying me to sit with their child for an hour – my time.

My money mindset journey begins

In June 2021 I began working with a mindset coach who put me on my money mindset journey.  I discovered Denise Duffield Thomas and other amazing business women changing the old, patriarchal narrative.  I went through a huge shift:

Key money mindset shifts

• Money is a tool that helps women take care of themselves and have the energy to help others.
• You deserve to get paid (and not with the scraps.)
• Charging appropriately is an act of self-care and self-love.
• It is not greedy or unethical to charge well for what you do.
• You serve, you deserve.
• Work doesn’t have to be hard.
• Making money doesn’t have to be hard.

My coach helped me realised all these things.

I threw the concepts of charging by the hour, charging based on my location,  charging based on the “going rate” and charging based on the age of the child and subject taught out of the window and moved to a fixed monthly fee that recognised my qualifications, experience and skills. 

No sibling discounts, no refunds, the same amount every month paid in advance.

It is now 11 months since my full-price monthly package came into being.  I’m fully-booked and earning the equivalent of my M6 full-time salary. I am paid appropriately for all the work I do. I work fewer hours, have time to invest in growing my business and am earning more as a result.

It wasn’t all plain sailing.  It was difficult and I’ve had doubts I did the right thing at times, but in less than a year I’m where I wanted to be financially and personally and looking forward to growing even more. 

Summary

• Charging by the hour is unsustainable, outdated and makes you work for free.
• Charging by location is an anomaly in our modern “Zoom” community.  It doesn’t matter where I am.  Why should my postcode influence what I charge?  I’ve lived all over the country and whilst some places are cheaper to live than others, the differences in cost of living outside of London and the South East are not that pronounced.
• Charging “the going rate” creates limiting beliefs about what you “should” charge.  Ignore it and charge appropriately for your qualifications, skills, experience and the results you get.
• Parents happily pay my rate, and understand what the fee includes.  The fixed amount each month helps them budget and they value me and my service even more because they see excellent outcomes for their investment.

For more information about money mindset for tutors, join my free Facebook Group or follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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In a parent consultation recently, the issue of giving praise to children came up.  Praise is good, right?  All children love praise!  They won’t achieve anything without it.

When I was training to be a teacher back in the noughties, everything was based around praise.  Praise for sitting still and listening, praise for writing the date, praise for answering a question right, praise for answering a question wrong, praise for not hitting that child, praise for saying sorry for hitting that child… 

I vividly remember being told never to tell a child they had got something wrong.  To say something like “good try, but not quite”. 

After a few years at the chalkface, it becomes clear that these strategies aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.  Praise only works when it is used sparingly and honestly.  Praising a child every five minutes for things that don’t necessarily deserve it can lead to apathy and lack of motivation.

The Problem with Praise

For children lacking in confidence, such as many of the children I work with, it can be tempting to over-praise to raise their self-esteem.  You may say that their picture or writing, or whatever it is, is the “best you’ve ever seen” or that it is “amazing”.  However, research suggests that this language has the opposite effect.  If you say or imply something is “perfect” or “incredibly good” (when it isn’t) children know what you are saying is not true and as a result, are less likely to choose a more challenging activity afterwards compared to children who were told it was just “good”, (“Mind Over Money”, Claudia Hammond, 2016, p153-154). By over-praising, we are setting standards that children feel are too high and creating a fear of failure because they don’t believe they can achieve the same level again in the future.

Research by Professor Carole Dweck, who has pioneered thinking around mindset, shows that praise is more effective when it is given for effort or the way a task is approached, rather than results (getting answers right).  She found that repeatedly telling a child they are “clever” (even if they are) can result in them staying within their comfort zone and not wanting to challenge themselves.

Praise in Tuition

To return to my consultation with a parent, she mentioned that at school, praise was a little too forthcoming and results-driven, which had led to exactly the situation found by Dewck’s research.  My tutee thought the work they did was good (when it wasn’t always good) and they were resisting challenging themselves.  Having worked with me for a few months now, we can both see that the child is thinking more carefully about their work, putting more effort into it, and spending longer on it.  They are willing to try new things that will challenge them and move their learning forward.  They are also more receptive to making mistakes and correcting them.  This is because I don’t NOT praise, but I don’t OVER-praise, and I praise for effort and approach, not just results. 

If a child I’m working with has done something well, I will tell them; if it is truly amazing, I will tell them and we will celebrate that – but if it isn’t, I won’t claim it is, but will help them work out how to improve it.  If they have found something difficult, but have tried hard, overcome frustrations, or asked for help I will give praise, because this helps build their confidence and willingness to keep trying and challenging themselves more in the future. 

To go back to my training days and being told not to tell and child they got something wrong but to say something like “good try, but not quite”, well, I’ve dropped the “good try, but” bit if it wasn’t a good try.  If the child is clearly not thinking hard enough, or has rushed, or has shown no understanding of the question or task, it is not necessarily a “good” try.  The praise I give is appropriate and based on effort and approach, not just results.   The impact that has on the child’s confidence and learning is clear to see.

Do contact me to discuss how I can help support you with your child’s learning.

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It’s nearly Christmas and so time for a fun blog post!  Christmas toys – but with an educational slant.  There are thousands of educational games and toys available, so I’m going to recommend just a small handful that I regularly suggest to parents. 

All these items are under £30 and many are under £15. I am not affiliated with any of the companies or brands mentioned in this blog and receive no payment for recommending them. I’m just sharing what I know children enjoy that will also help them learn.

Watch

Many children struggle to tell the time and many parents ask how they can help their child with this essential life skill.  The best way is to buy them a wristwatch.  It doesn’t really matter what type of watch, although an analogue one (with hands) is good because telling the time on a traditional clock is a trickier concept than digital, and there are still many analogue clocks in the world around us.  A watch with analogue and digital displays are also really useful and help children understand the 24-hour clock.  Children feel grown up with a watch and enjoy using it to work out the time themselves.  Google “children’s watch” and lots of options come up.  I particularly like this one because it has an analogue and 24-hour clock combined. 

As with children who display a good understanding of spelling and sentence formation because they read a lot, children with their own watch pick up the concept of telling the time and time management quicker than children who do not have a way of working out and managing their time for themselves.

Times table Games

Learning times tables can be loads of fun. 

I love these times table snap cards by Green Board Games Co.  I’ve had these for years and you can tell they have been played with and enjoyed quite a few times! Just google “times table snap” and they will come up, along with lots of other brands and variations, such as flash cards.  (I’ve just checked this and there is currently a packet on Ebay for £125! I think that is a typo!) There are various versions, including division facts, so you can choose the set that’s right for your child.

Bananagrams

Bananagrams is such a fantastic game.  Kids love it because the letter tiles are kept in a banana-shaped case and the tiles are really tactile.  The aim is to create a crossword with your letter tiles, but there are various ways to play the game, and some children enjoy just using the letters to spell out words or making up their own spelling games.

There’s also a “My first letter” set for younger children, and an Appletters game too.

Boggle

Another favourite for practising spelling is Boggle.  How many words can you find in the 4X4 grid of letters in 3 minutes? Again, you can vary the game to make it easier or more of a challenge.

Storycubes

Storycubes are great for developing imaginative thinking and storytelling for all ages.  Again, there are different versions and themes, so google “story cubes” or “story dice” and see which one your child will enjoy the most. I got my set from Flying Tiger for about £5.

Books

Reading is the key to all learning.  Children who read for pleasure – regardless of their family background, economic situation or where they live – do better at school, and consequently are more “successful” (whatever that means to them) in life.  Reading is also fantastic for developing empathy for others, especially for people from backgrounds different to our own, and for expanding horizons and aspirations.  It’s also really good for our mental health.  Check out my blog for some book recommendations.

I’ve discovered these “Can you find it” books this year and they have been such a hit with my tutees, right up to the 11 year olds. The images are so well put together and the children love finding the items hidden in the picture. They are also great for developing patience, observation skills and could even be used to inspire story writing! There are four books in total – Food, Around the World, Vehicles and The Zoo.

Orchard Toys

Orchard Toys are fantastic!  They produce games and jigsaws for younger children that are educational and fun.  The games are largely plastic-free and hardwearing. They cover number and letter skills, shape, colour and matching skills among many others!

I hope I’ve inspired some gift ideas and you have fun playing with them over Christmas and beyond!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from The Top Cat Tutor!

The post Christmas Gifts with an Educational Twist appeared first on Karen Lander - The Top Cat Tutor.

Throughout November I will be going live on my Facebook page to quickly explain some of the most common misconceptions, or stumbling blocks, that the children I work with often display, and provide advice on overcoming them.

I’ll take a look at each of them further in this blog.

The Maths Blocks:

Firstly, a couple of maths issues that crop up again and again: multiplying and dividing by powers of 10 and the commutativity of multiplication.

Multiplying and dividing by powers of 10.

A power of 10 is 10, 100, 1000 etc.  When I was at school, and I’m sure when you were too, we were taught to add zeros when we multiply by powers of 10 and to take zeros away when we divide by powers of 10. It was only when I was in teacher training college 20 years ago that I found out this is mathematically incorrect, and sets children up for problems further down the line (and probably helps explain one reason why I struggled with maths).  It is important to teach this correctly from the start so children don’t get stuck later on.  However, children are still being taught this “trick” and I’ve lost count of the times it has put a barrier in their way over the years.

So, if adding and taking away zeros is not correct, what is?

We need to understand that it is the digits moving and changing their place value.  When multiplying, numbers get bigger, so the digits move up the place values.  This leaves a space, or spaces, so we need to use a zero as a “place holder” to show there are no ones, for example. 

When we divide numbers, they get smaller, so here the numbers move down the place values.

So far, however, the trick of adding or taking away a zero works and gets the right answer, so what’s the issue?  Why does it matter whether we add or take off a zero or move the digits? 

Let’s start with looking at dividing.  When dividing, not all numbers have a zero on the end to “take away”.  If you have been taught to take off a zero and then you are presented with 32÷10, you are now well and truly stuck.  You have no idea how to solve this problem.  You get despondent and frustrated.  Maths becomes “difficult”.  If you have, however, been taught that the digits move, then this barrier never appears.  We just know what to do – move the digits.  No problem was created and we can continue to access maths and understand number. The digits might need to “jump” over the decimal point to become tenths or hundredths. When I was at school, I was told to move the decimal point.  Again, this is fundamentally incorrect.  The decimal point is fixed to the spot.  It doesn’t move.  It is glued down.  The digits move around it.

What about when we are multiplying?  We are adding a zero so why is it a problem?  The answer is because it leads to poor understanding of place value.  This is understanding what each digit represents – hundreds, tens and ones (sometimes called units).  If we just add a zero to 32 without moving any digits we still have 32.  We don’t write 32.0 because the zero tenths is not telling me anything useful, because I don’t need to know I don’t have any tenths.  Adding a zero on the end of 32 does not change the number in any way.  We need to move the digits, then place a zero in the empty place value columns to show clearly what the number is and avoid confusion.  A three in the tens column means 30, but 30 what?  31? 38?  The zero place holder is saying “there are no ones”.  This zero is vital.  And it’s vital it is in the ones column, not the tenths column.  Where it is means very different things.

Children enjoy practising these skills by moving numbers up and down a place value chart.  Imagine the numbers sprouting feet, or wheels, or being pushed in a trolley – whatever works to remember they are MOVING.

To know how many places on the chart to move, look at the power of 10 you are multiplying or dividing by.  10 moves one place because there is one zero, 100 two places because there are two zeros, 1000 three places etc.

Times tables are commutative:

Commutative means that the calculation can be written either way around.  3X4=12 is the same as 4X3 =12.  As I’ve explained in my blog “What Can I do to Help my Child with their Learning?”, it is best to learn all the related times table facts together as it creates less work in the long run.  If you know 3X4 = 12 you therefore know 4X3 = 12 and therefore 12÷4 = 3 and 12÷3=4.  That’s four facts for the price of one!  Lots of children, when presented with 12X5 for example, will say they don’t know their 12 times table.  When asked “do you know your 5 times table?” they say yes and know 5X12 = 60.  Understanding that you can swap the numbers around is liberating.  Children think the 12 times table is hard, or that they don’t know it.  They will know more 12 times questions than they think.  Turn the question around!

The English Blocks:

Over sounding phonemes and resistance to editing writing.

“Uh” Phonics:

Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound within a word.  Children are taught phonics from the early years and there is a huge focus on it in school.  Children will be familiar with the word “phonics” and “phoneme”.  We use phonics to sound out words to help us read and write (this is only helpful to a point in English as lots of English words are not phonetic).

The children I work with who struggle with reading and spelling often are not sounding phonemes correctly.  They say, for example, “c-hu – ah – t-hu”.  We don’t say cat “cuhahtuh”,  it’s “c-a-t”.  The sounds are very small and quiet, with no “uh” on the end.  The vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u) are louder and may have a slight “uh” on the end, but the consonants are small, made by a little puff of air (b, p), or restricting the back of the throat (c, k, q) for example.  Encourage your child to say the sounds as small and quietly as possible (but still being able to hear them!)  This will help them hear the word they are sounding out – “c-a-t” sounds like “cat” -which helps with reading and spelling.

As a side note, I’ve noticed lots of children calling letters words – “how many words in the word?”  It’s also important to know the difference between the name of the letter (A – ay) and the sound it makes (“a” as in apple).

Proofreading and Editing:

Children are generally great at writing.  They have fantastic ideas which they write down eagerly.  However, many think that once they’ve written the last word (not necessarily with a full stop after it) they are done and it’s time to move on to the next thing.  When you explain that the next thing is to go over and edit the writing, they sometimes become frustrated and despondent, and issues around fear of mistakes and getting things wrong surface.

Children need to understand that writing is a process, and correcting their work is an integral part of that process.  Proofreading (finding spelling, grammar and punctuation errors) and editing (changing the word choice, word order, sentence structure etc) are essential parts of being a writer. Every writer goes through this process and every piece of text that has been professionally published goes through this process, multiple times.  Find your favourite book.  The author didn’t write those words first time, and then it was printed and you bought it.  Those words are there after a process of changing, correcting, adding in or taking out many, many times before it was printed and sent to the shop.  Being a proofreader and/or editor is a career.  People are paid to check writing and make it as good as it can be.  It is not a criticism or telling off.  It is an essential part of the writing process.

When children understand that the first draft of their writing is not the finished version and there is an expectation to proofread and edit, and that is done in an engaging, creative way, they are able to see this as part of the process and embrace the task of making their writing “as good as it can be”.

A first draft should be about getting ideas out of your head and on paper.  Children shouldn’t be worrying about how to spell words or where to put full stops at this stage.  What’s important is getting the ideas down.  The next stage is to check the spelling, punctuation etc.  Children should do this themselves first, before someone else checks it (it is good to have a fresh pair of eyes look at it which is why authors use professional proofreaders and editors.)  Instead of looking for all the things that need changing at once, focus on one thing at a time.  Are the capital letters correct?  Now the full stops and other punctuation?  Are there any words I know are spelt incorrectly, or I think might be?  Check them (put a wiggly line under them first).  Be a writing detective.  Put yourself in the shoes of your reader.  Have you made your writing as clear as possible for them?  Will they understand and enjoy it?

Drafts of writing should be messy.  There should be crossing out, insertion, asterisks to show where new sentences and paragraphs are that couldn’t be fitted in.  Use different coloured pens if it helps, but it’s not necessary.  This shows the child has gone back and thought about their writing, and corrected errors, embedding learning along the way.

Young children in Years 1 and 2 should be checking they have used capital letters and full stops correctly, and maybe checking 1 or 2 spelling words.  Build up the amount of proofreading and editing done as the children become older and more skilled in their writing abilities. 

Editing is often seen as a chore by children, but it is actually a really creative process.  Is there a better word or phrase to use to really get across what I want the reader to know or imagine?  What happens if I move the words around, take a word out, change a word, move a comma…?  Editing is being playful with language.  That is fun!

To see my short explanations of these misconceptions, please visit my Facebook page.  Coming in the new year will be my Learning Support Membership where there will be short, engaging video lessons and supporting activities to address these misconceptions. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing how I can help support your child’s learning.

I’m now off to proofread and edit this blog before publishing!  What you are reading is not the first draft 😉.

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