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Follow your dreams - Monday's Tutoring Memories

Supporting adults with SEND

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July 29, 2024•2 min read

I worked with the Aylesbury lady a few years ago now.

She wanted to go to Uni, but to achieve that she had to get onto the access course first.

That involved, amongst other things a maths exam.

She struggled with dyslexia and dyscalculia.

When she got in touch at the beginning of the summer holidays, she had just sat the math exam and failed.

She had asked if she could be given the opportunity to re-sit it. The college’s initial reaction was pretty much, she had little or no chance of passing so she would be wasting their time...

She had argued her corner and they had relented. This was when she got in touch. If I remember rightly, I used to go around a couple of times a week. She would also spend a lot of time practising herself.

We would play games focusing on what she needed to learn. Occasionally, We did some more formal work, but predominately the maths was disguised in the game.

We had 6 weeks until she re-sat her test.

I have never met anyone who is as dedicated and hard working as she was.

At the end of the 6 weeks, she returned to college and resat the exam.

She passed with flying colours. I have never felt so proud of someone for what she accomplished that summer.

I supported her through the access course and at the end of it, she set off to uni to become an occupational therapist.

Apparently, she would sit there in the lessons feeling smug, knowing that the college staff didn’t think she had what was needed to get onto the course. But with pure hard work and dedication, she had achieved her goal.

A truly amazing lady.

Don't let anything stand in the way of your dreams

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Dawn Strachan

For the past 20+ years I have been a firm believer that learning should be an enjoyable experience. I appreciate that traditionally education has revolved around worksheets, textbooks, listening to teachers. But a grounding in early years and working with children who had a variety of learning styles from I learned that it is an individual activity that is personal to all of us. We don’t all learn in the same way. Our influences, our experiences, our capabilities all influence how we retain information. But through it all, I believe that if we can make it enjoyable and engaging, they will want to participate. With participation comes practice which in turn boosts skill and confidence. With an increase in skill and confidence comes a willingness to have a go. This in turn leads to more practice which leads to a positive spiral of success. The moral, we need to make learning fun, engaging, use a range of techniques.

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Morning,

I hope the week is going well.

So many people seem to be doing D of E and work experience
at the moment, good luck if that’s you and if you’re at Marlow Camp next
fingers crossed for good weather!

I’ve just finished a lesson on division. It seems to be
something that messes with the brains of so many people.

I found it got easier when I stopped thinking about it as
division and instead thought about it as multiplication. So, if for example I
had the question 396 divided by 3, I would look at it as 3x what = 3. My answer
would be 1. How many times would I need to multiply 3 to get to 9, (my answer
would be 3). Then 3x something = 6. My answer would be 2. Giving me the overall
answer of 132.

I know that’s a really simple example but hopefully it explains
my point.

Thankfully in schools they don’t often seem to need to do
long division, but I’ve worked with a couple of adults (generally nurses for
some reason) who have needed it.

I think I’ll explain this one in a video, as it will be too
complicated to explain it with words as bits get put all over the place. I hope
this makes sense though:

https://youtu.be/cxkN_C5Ecwc

Enjoy the rest of the week and speak soon,

Dawn