METHOD

Mission

Educate, inspire and empower children and adults to achieve their goals

Values

Honesty
Accountability
Hard Work
Autonomy
Curiosity
Kindness

Sounds good! But how?

By giving you a helping hand to show you that you can do hard things.

Here's some theory!

When you have the support to take on a new challenge, and succeed, you gain what's called a 'mastery experience'.

The knowledge that you have this mastery experience then triggers a fantastic domino effect. You instantly get a lovely boost of self-confidence (or a better word - 'self-efficacy') which then means you are then empowered to do even more hard things. You're more likely then to gain more mastery experiences, and gain even more self-efficacy!

The same chain reaction is unfortunately true in reverse. If we fail to meet new challenges, either because we don't have the right support, we don't have the determination to see them through, or because our goals were unrealistic in the first place , it damages our self-confidence and self-efficacy. And this sadly makes us less likely to take on new challenges and give us the boost of confidence we really need.

It's really important for all age groups to have these 'mastery experiences' to build their self-efficacy throughout life - toddlers, children, young people, adults, and even the elderly. I remember me and my Mum speaking to my 100 year-old Grandma and suggesting she takes it easy. She replied - 'I've got to push myself to do it, so I know I can do it'. She exercised her persistence and determination muscles every day. Tremendous, hard-earnt self-efficacy.

With strong self-efficacy, everything is figure-it-out-able. You can look at something difficult and think, right, youch this could be tricky. Let's break this down. Let's see how can I approach this. I think I can give this a go. You can persist, put in the effort required, and triumph.

Self-efficacy is key to achieving your goals. But whatever happens on exam day, you'll have built a foundational lifelong trust and faith in yourself - a true superpower, that nobody can touch!

Right, so where do we start?

Starting out on a quest of self-improvement is often the most difficult part. Going out for that first run, starting a difficult conversation, writing the first word of your dissertation. So I am here to coach you and help you take that first step.

To be specific, we will prioritise and 'Eat the Frog' - tackle the most important, scariest, or most foundational topics first.

We're going to get the grammatical, numerical, practical skeleton out of the closet and look it in the face. Take things right back to basics; slow and easy. We will conquer it, and then we will do something even harder. This will give you an instant, big swell of confidence and self-efficacy.

What next?

We'll then prioritise and work through any areas of focus we have identified in the enrolment session, in school reports, or that you have flagged as needing help with, in priority order.

As with many subjects, English and Maths are cumulative subjects, which means you keep building on subject knowledge. You have to build the house from the foundations (otherwise it will fall down!). So foundational topics are our priority - handwriting, how fractions and decimals are the same thing, what a comprehension test is.

Foundational topics can easily be missed when children are off school, unwell, or tired or just zone out because things are too difficult. And now more than ever, teachers just don't have the time to get individuals back up to speed.

It's also a great benefit that we can be flexible and reactive to address any new areas of concern straight away - whether that's homework you need help with, or any problem that has come up at school. If there is something urgent, it's really important that we address it straight away. To this end, I recommend carrying a notebook where you can make a quick note in lessons if there's anything you worrying you that you'd like to discuss next week.

While we're doing all of this, it's also rally important for me to build your independence to take responsibility for your own learning, and to move towards self-validation.

Some questions I might ask during are sessions are:

How are you going to approach this? What's your first step?
Talk me through your answer to this
Are you satisfied with how you did this week? Why?
Can you check this work? Where have I gone wrong?
What did you learn from this? How could you do better next time?

Part of you taking ownership of your learning is also to be really honest with me - I don't want you to smile and nod along if you don't understand something. Be critical! (Politely). Tell me if you don't understand, ask questions, ask me to explain it in a different way. It doesn’t matter if I have to explain something in ten different ways. I’m here for you, this is your time, so use it as best you can.