Home Schooling Case Studies
We have introduced tutors for children with a wide range of different academic needs and family circumstances. Below is just a small sample of the experiences of our UK based and internationally based home school families.
To find out more about how a SLT home schooling programme could work for your family, please speak to one of our education consultants.
Gabriel
Home schooling can be a great way of getting a child back on the right track and in the right frame of mind for school. That was the case for 7 year old Gabriel. He was part of a family who had to travel a lot. He was finding it difficult to work in a classroom environment and struggling to socialise with his peers. With the collaboration of his school, he took a year out and began a home schooling programme to focus on his concentration and social skills – working with one tutor for numeracy and literacy and one for creative subjects.
The tutors have travelled with Gabriel and his family and have tailored his timetable to work with their travel plans. They regularly take him on visits to museums, galleries and other places of interest around London, and base their work on topics of interest to Gabriel. The result? His concentration has improved greatly. All being well, he will return to school next year.
Jack
Sometimes a school’s relatively rigid timetables can disengage certain children, and a period of more flexible home schooling can get them back in the groove. Jack, 15, is an example. He had previously been expelled from a school and was struggling with the routine and boundaries at his new school. One of his challenges was that he had been diagnosed with ADHD, and it was affecting him quite considerably. He needed more support than the school was able to offer. And to provide that support he started a part-time home schooling program.
This programme was delivered by three tutors, who each specialised in different subjects. This team was able to support Jack in his academics and act as mentors encouraging him to stay on track. However, one of the key things they also did was cut the length of Jack’s lessons – making it easier for him to concentrate throughout and avoiding the temptation to lose track. His academic results improved a great deal (he achieved As and Bs in his GCSEs). He’s since transitioned back into school well, and remains focused on his studies with no reports of bad behaviour.
Alex
Alex is a five year old boy who was due to start in reception class in September. His parents felt that he was struggling both academically and socially and they could not find a school that was able to offer him the level of extra support that he needed.
Alex has now begun daily home schooling with two tutors. They follow the academic calendar with breaks at half term, Christmas and Easter. Both tutors are pre-school specialists, with one focusing on the core subjects, such as phonics and numeracy, and one focusing on the creative subjects such as art, drama, music and humanities. Alex has settled into his home school routine well and is already showing improvements in his concentration. The tutors are also working with Alex’s parents to select suitable extra curricular clubs to ensure Alex is regularly socialising with other children his age.
Alistair
Alastair began home schooling in year 8, because he was struggling to socialise at school. He had four specialist tutors and a study skills tutor who taught him for one and a half years. Alastair worked very well with his tutors, covering all academic material for his year group and a lot of material from the year above. His confidence and social skills increased a great deal and he was able, with the close support of his tutors, to learn more appropriate ways to socialise with people his own age.
Alastair’s tutors also worked together with his parents to select a suitable school for him and supported them through the admissions process. Alastair is now settled at a London 6th form college and continues to have weekly maths and German tutorials after school. Alastair’s transition back to school was easy – because he had covered a lot of extension material in many of his subjects, he was academically very confident and was able to focus on building friendships.
International Tutoring Case Studies
International tutors introduced by SLT have inspired confidence and transformed the academic journey of many children across the world.
Monaco
Two sisters, aged 14 and 15 years old were severely lacking in confidence and falling behind at their International School.
Sometimes it can take a long time for a child to trust any tutor, no matter how good they are. We’ve recently been working with a client in Monaco, whose two girls were struggling at their international school in Monaco. The girls’ father had the foresight to realise that this wasn’t a quick fix. Instead we introduced two tutors who lived full-time with the family on board their yacht in Monaco for 36 months.
Over that time the tutors slowly but surely gained the girls’ trust. They then helped the girls work through several challenges, including intense dyslexia and dyscalculia, and the ensuing confidence problems. The result? A grades in their GCSEs, bolstered confidence and a fantastic tutor-child relationship
Colorado, USA
Two brothers, 10 and 12 years were traveling the world for 12 months. Their parents were concerned about loss of learning.
Our clients had planned the holiday of a lifetime; to travel the world with their children, exploring foreign cultures and exotic landscapes. They called us because both boys had entrance exams coming up when they returned to London and they were concerned about jeopardising their chances. We introduced a tutor who would travel with the family and be in charge of keeping the balance between holiday, adventure and committed learning.
The tutor kept the children motivated by relating the places they visited to the subjects they were learning. By combining accelerated one to one learning with targeted preparation for the Common Entrance exams, the children arrived back in the UK a year ahead of their peers and passed their entrance exams with flying colours.
India
An ambitious female student, 17 years old, lived in Delhi and needed very high level help with IB subjects.
Some children really benefit from the pastoral side of tuition. On the other hand, some just need to be inspired by the best minds available in any particular subject – no matter where those specialists are in the world. This is exactly the case for a very clever Indian girl studying at Westminster who we’ve helped over the years. We introduced her to a tutor who worked with her at her home in Knightsbridge, then remotely with her when the family returned to their main residence in Delhi.
On top of that, we also matched her to two of the very top specialist IB tutors for her subjects, one of whom happened to live in Cornwall, the other in Africa. It didn’t matter – their online tuition continued for a period of 16 months, and she achieved an IB score of 40.
Sweden
Boy, 12 years old, Common Entrance, with dyspraxia.
If a child is struggling at school, sometimes the quickest way to get them moving forward is actually to hold them back a bit. Bring them down to a level they feel they really know and they’ll race forward faster than you could possibly imagine. It’s what happened recently with a 12-year-old Swedish boy who was preparing for Common Entrance. He was attending a leading prep school in London but his grades had fallen steadily over a two-year period, and he was averaging 30% in his CE mocks.
The specialist CE tutor we introduced quickly identified a processing problem, which was then diagnosed as Dyspraxia. The boy had developed such a good coping mechanism no one had noticed, but it had completely undermined his confidence. With the help of his school, the boy was moved down two sets and his tuition stepped up. Once he’d found solid foundations, his learning increased hugely.
The boy averaged 80% in his Common Entrance and secured a place in one of England’s leading Senior Schools.
Ireland
Several children needed GCSE tutors but none were available locally.
An Irish family engaged us to introduce tutors for a range of GCSE subjects for several children. The challenge for us was not so much to introduce a fantastic tutor for each subject, but rather to do so at very short notice – often less than 24 hours. Interestingly, the family had initially thought they would split tuition between their homes in Ireland and London but, as is often the case, they realised that tuition was much more effective at home, where the boys were relaxed. It’s always better to let the tutor take the strain of weekly commuting!
Dubai
8 and 11 year old brothers, one Gifted and Talented were not supported sufficiently at school.
The search for a tutor is often confounded by local laws and customs. Our clients in Dubai interviewed several excellent tutors for a yearlong position, but none were willing to accept Dubai’s strict laws on co-habitation. Our client also required someone who could relocate quickly and work with their children as they travelled through several different countries.
We introduced a tutor who embraced this nomadic lifestyle and is currently working with the family to implement the children’s homeschool education.
Please call us today to discuss your child’s requirements for home schooling.
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