The Necessity of Home Tuition

Home tuition or enrichment classes after school three days a week. Sounds familiar? That is the lifestyle of many school children in Singapore today. We have placed a high importance on an education with brand name schools and outstanding grades. This is in hope that it will potentially lead to good jobs, salaries etc. Intense competition in society has come to a point where it is a given to have private home tuition.

Is home tuition a must? Necessity or not depends on the individual’s motivations, abilities and of course, parents. We want what is best for our children, hoping that he/she will be a top student and do better in life than us. It is understandable to push our children through home tuition and enrichment classes. The question is... how much is too much?

It is a fine line between having home tuition which is beneficial and being way too burdensome on the child. Once crossed, our children will feel over exhausted by these extra activities and lose interest in their studies. It removes their interests in acquiring knowledge and instead, are forced to engage in rote learning to do well in examinations. Overloading them with lessons three to five days a week would not make them brilliant at once. Instead, it is about taking a measured approach to their learning and providing home tuition as a guidance and especially, in moderation.

Home tuition should be used as a tool to supplement what has been taught in school or to enforce a little discipline in our young ones. It will be beneficial for weaker students who need more guidance in their school work. A tuition agency can help find a private tutor who can help to instill discipline in our children to complete school work on time. If a student is able to cope well with the school curriculum, home tuition is not a necessity. A performing student should be given opportunities to pursue activities that he/she like and be given ample space to develop themselves.

Let them explore their environment and play while they are young. This will give them memorable experiences which will be meaningful to them. Our children will be grateful to us for that.

Looking back at our education, we did not rely on home tuition as much as it is today. Have times changed? Has competition increased? Times certainly has changed looking at how our country has transformed into a knowledge-based economy where human capital is our only resource. Competition has increased as we have become a global city and an ideal location for expatriates to establish their career. The education stakes have been upped many folds and failure is not an option. However, there are many aspects to life than just being a top student and getting the best job. Consider that and weigh our life priorities. Home tuition is an important aspect of our education system but it certainly is not a need as perceived by many.

3 Things Every Tutor Should Avoid Doing

In order to be recognised as a professional and experienced tutor, it is important to portray an image that is appropriate. Why is it important to portray such an image? Studies show that teachers who can present themselves as role models teach more effectively. Moreover, parents put their mind at ease when their child is in the hands of a responsible tutor.

There are many bad tutors on the market that spoil the name of good tutors who are provide a necessary service to society. These tutors view a tuition assignment as a mere job and are prone to committing mistakes. Some of these tutors get rejected after a few lessons. To avoid getting yourself in this situation, you should avoid doing the points outlined below.

Do not be late for tuition, unless you have a valid reason. By being late, you are setting a very bad example for your tutee. As a result, parents would also doubt your ability to teach as a tutor. Most tutors are rejected because they are constantly late for lessons.  If a tutor is always late, it shows he/she is unreliable.

Do not change your tuition sessions frequently. One of the key things to success in examinations is consistent effort. This applies to tuition sessions as well. Regular sessions teaches your tutee the importance of regularity and consistent effort. It would make your lessons easier in the future. Usually, tutors who reschedule lessons frequently have tuition only when they have the free time to do so. This leaves a very bad impression on both parents and tutees.

Do not discourage your tutee when he/she fails to do well. Most children need tuition because they receive negative feedback about how they study. It can come from their parents, friends and even teachers. This lowers their self confidence and ability to perform. This is where you can make a difference. If you are able to teach your tutee that studying can be easy and fun, half the battle is already won.

Do not drill information into your tutee. Most tutors think that their tutees would understand if they present information to them. More often than not, inexperienced tutors would  teach lessons in ways which are difficult to understand. You should always step into your tutees shoes to see if the lesson is effective.

Some questions you might want to ask yourself is how would you like to be taught if you have no clue of the topic at all. Always question yourself if you can make your lesson easier to understand. Although this is a simple concept, even the best tutors lose track of this at times. Therefore, it is important to ground yourself from time to time.

Being able to teach effectively is only one aspect of a great teacher. What makes great teachers great is the example that they set for their students. As it can be seen, it is definitely not easy to be a good tutor. However, with consistent effort, it will all pay off in time to come.

If you would like to find tuition jobs in SIngapore, it is important that you learn how to be a good tutor.

Is Home Tuition only for Poor Students?

Many parents have the idea that home tuition is only for poor students who are slow in learning. As a result of this stigma, many of them only resort to home tuition when all other options fail. Typically, students who are enrolled for home tuition are students who are on the verge of failing or have been failing their exams.

So why do parents seek the help of home tutors when their children's grades are failing? This is because home tutors can provide students with the 1 to 1 specialised attention that they need.

Would good students not benefit from this 1 to 1 attention? The answer is no. In fact, students who are already doing well in school achieve even greater results with the help of a private tutor. Outlined below are ways a tutor can help your already performing child.

Tutors can offer a custom curriculum designed for your child. This is seen time and time again with home tuition. The attention that your child gets from the tutor is customized to his/her need. This is contrary to the classroom environment, whereby a one size fit all approach applies Should he be good in certain chapters, a tutor can choose to spend less time on it, vice versa. This ensures the most efficiency in time spent on where your childs needs it the most.

Home tutors can provide intensive revision sessions. The consummate student will tell you that practice makes perfect. This universal law applies for examinations too. The more your child is familiar with exam settings, the better he/she will do. With the help of a home tutor, your child can be sure to receive much more revision than what he can receive in school. Schools take typically 2 weeks to complete and go through an exam paper. With home tuition, papers can be marked and feedback can be received by the student in a matter of two sessions. Intensive revision is really what separates the above average students and the smart students.

Your child can get ahead of his/her peers by having extra help on school work. Students can consult tutors almost anything on any subject This applies with school work as well. Typically, tutors would also try to cover topics ahead of syllabus. In this way, students would already have been taught topics in tuition before going through them in class. This is beneficial as the lesson in class would be considered 'revision' for your child. Concepts taught in class would also be reinforced during lessons.

We have seen how some home tuition can help your already performing child. We would like to point out that the best performers of any field, all have personalized coaching to help them achieve the high level of success that they desire. With the proper utilization of your home tutor, even the your child can scale even higher heights.

How to Find a Reliable Tuition Agency

As parents, we always face the same frustrations when exams are weeks away and just can’t find a responsible tutor for our child. A reliable tuition agency can help shorten that process and identify these tutors that we have been looking for. How then can we know if a tuition agency can be trusted to do the right thing and deliver?

Here we will identify key factors in partnering the right tuition agency

Experience
Always partner a tuition agency with a large amount of experience in this industry. With experience, the tuition agency will be in a better position to understand your requirement and needs. This will help you to identify the right tutors to fit your requirements. A good gauge of experience would be of at least three years in operations.

Network of tutors
Engage a tuition agency with a large network of tutors. You will then be able to leverage on this network, be recommended the best pool of tutors and select only the most suitable one. With a wide selection of choices, you will then be able to compare the tutors’ teaching experiences and make a better informed decision.

Ethical practices
Work only with tuition agencies that engage in ethical practices. Blind recommendations of tutors and overstating of teaching experiences are some of the unethical practices that tuition agencies can engage in. You have to be comfortable speaking with the tuition coordinator and ensure that the coordinator provide complete information on the tutor’s commitments and teaching experience. To put your mind at ease, request that the tuition coordinator arrange a phone interview between you and the tutor.

Price
If something is too cheap, it probably isn’t good. Be wary of hiring a tutor at a cost that is too good a deal as the qualifications or experience might be not what you are looking for. If the price is too high, ensure that it is justified by the tutor’s experience and track record. Highly qualified tutors with good experience are in good demand and these tutors do charge a slight premium for their services.

We are here to help
Choosing the right tutor can be a daunting task. Partnering a reliable tuition agency will be essential to achieve your objective. We are here to help and to provide as much information as you need. From the challenges of the school syllabus to the type of tutor that may suit your child, TuitionKing is here to ensure that your problems are solved.

We have been in this business since 2010 providing intermediary services between our clients and teaching professionals. We seek to put the needs of our clients’ first and to engage in ethical practices which will create value for our clients. Please feel free to contact our friendly coordinators to explore how our services can help you today.

Should You Consider Tutoring as a Career?

Lots of people in Singapore have thought about working in the teaching industry being a profession. The tuition scene has grown substantially in the past several years. This may be accounted via the rise in education expectations in Singapore. Parents are going to pay additional to ensure their kids secure places in leading schools. With that said, many tuition centres and institutes are sprouting to accommodate these growing needs.

With the education segment thriving, fresh graduate students learn that they can get a higher paycheck by teaching. So what exactly is tutoring and why would you consider it? In the following paragraphs we will proceed through some of the positives and negatives of tutoring and taking on tuition assignments.

At the top of the list, tutors get to enjoy flexible working hours. Unlike other regular jobs, the work schedule for tutors are determined by when students can have tuition. In Singapore, this will mean weekday evenings and weekends. This is a double edged sword, as some individuals like to have preset work periods. However, for people who stay away from the morning rush hour, variable working hours would certainly be a perk.

Tutors also get to choose the type of tuition assignments that they prefer to teach. Nearly all tutors prioritize on teaching just one single subject. This will make sense, as many everyone is usually good in some subjects. If you are really good at teaching and may assure results, parents are willing to pay more for your services. One particular illustration is Miss Loi of Joss Sticks tuition centre. She is amongst the highest paid tutors in Singapore and specialises in teaching elementary mathematics. Because she has cracked the code for teaching mathematics,hundreds of students are on her waiting list to be taught.

On the other side, you'll find downsides to operating in the tuition industry that others often neglect. For example, people are usually skeptical regarding the tuition industry. You will find average tutors who views teaching as an easy way of earning money. These tutors lack passion to teach. Because of this, students aren't able to produce results. These black sheeps spoil the standing of hardworking tutors. Having said that, starting tutors would have a tough time proving themselves worthy. It could take a tutor several years of top quality teaching before he/she will be recognised.

A lot of tutors also find teaching nerve-racking. Fresh tutors will quickly realise that teaching is capable of turning out to be a emotional turmoil. A successful tutor will have to deal with all kinds of students. Everybody would like to have good students, but there are bound to be bad students within the mix. To put that into perspective, a lot of teachers in Singapore quit simply because they're can not deal with the pressure of dealing with naughty children. Some parents even hold teachers responsible when their kids don't perform well. To be successful as a tutor, you will need to forgive yourself and accept that not every students can be helped.

Is Home Tuition for Everyone?

Education is the key if you want to survive in competitive Singapore. With the influx of foreigners, places in local universities are scarce. To make matters worse, the benchmark just to secure a place keeps creeping higher. Students nowadays are studying harder than ever, scrambling for spots to get a degree. It is also a known fact that in the Singapore job market, everywhere you turn, you see a graduate. Not having a degree in Singapore just would not cut it.

In short, there are three options parents have when it comes to beefing up their children’s results. Just plainly studying in a school, having tuition in tuition centre or having home tuition by a private tutor. All of which has its benefits and drawbacks and these options must be chosen carefully according to the students learning capabilities.

Let’s take a look at studying in a school today, for example, a typical class in a primary school. It contains 40 hyperactive and attention seeking students and just 1 teacher to teach the lesson. Being in the teacher's position is probably not something you would want to put yourself into. Teaching here is fast paced it is very much up to the students individual responsibility to figure out and digest most of the lesson. It’s not that teachers deliberately leave out the slower students,they do so because they have to keep up with the syllabus. But for students who can pick information up fast, and can concentrate in fast paced environments, they will be able to well even without the aid of tuition.

However, most students and unable to do so, and that is why in Singapore’s competitive education system, 9 out of 10 students have gone through tuition before. Many have tried tuition, some have seen results, some think it is a waste of time and money, so how do you know which is suitable for you and how would you benefit from it?

Tuition centres is an option which most parents would opt for if they children are not doing well in school. But one common known fact is that tuition centres offer the same classroom environment as schools. What renowned tuition centres offer are teachers wshorho are more experienced and can teach better because they specialise in teaching of one subject per class. Centres also offer more concise notes and lots more practise in the forms of revision and test papers for students, greatly beneficial for students who just lack practise. In short, if you are an average student in class who just needs more practice and have difficulty solving the more difficult questions, this is where you would want to be to push that B to that A you’ve always wanted.

Home tuition would inevitably be the last resort for some parents if they see no results from other options. Being a tutor myself in the past, I have seen why some students require individualised attention. These are the ones who have no idea why they are failing and have no clue on how to study. A tuition agency can help parents find a tutor who can observe the students work and their thinking process. This observation process is what tuition centres cannot provide which some students desperately need. It would be crucial for pinpointing mistakes or bad habits in students so learning can take place. Without a solid systematic approach to studying and doing work, most students would fail in absorbing information and inevitably fail in exams. If you are a student faring poorly in exams and find topics hard to grasps, it would be wise to get a private tutor to rectify the problems you have.

3 Ways to Choose a good Home Tutor in Singapore

For the Singaporean parent, it can be stressful to raise children in Singapore. Being a knowledge based economy, Singapore is dependant on it’s educated workforce to drive her economy forward. Hence, it is no surprise that parents are anxious about how their children fare in school. Some parents worry that formal education in schools is not sufficient and use home tuition to supplement their children’s education.

Home tutors and tuition assignments can be found literally everywhere in Singapore for every subject and every level. But to engage a competent one can make all the difference to the kind of results your child achieve. Tuition agencies usually find suitable candidates for you to choose. However, it is also important that you know what to look out for in a tutor. to So how do you sieve out the gold mines from the rest of the average tutors?

1. Qualifications
On the top of the list, a tutor must be knowledgeable and competent on the subject he/she is going to teach.  I personally believe that you have not gotten at least a B or A for the subject, you do not understand the subject well enough to teach. So when looking for a tutor, the first thing you should ask for is their qualification. Request to see your tutor's certificates. When looking for Tutors in Singapore, you can look at either the A Level certificates or O level certificates. Many agencies offer these services to check these certificates beforehand.

2. Experience
Secondly, a private tutor must have experience in teaching. This can be easily accessed when the tutor teaches the lessons. In most cases, tutors would have their own set of notes or have his/her special way of teaching, this way you would have known that the tutor has indeed dissected the syllabus. You can count on your private tutor to make the lessons fun and easy for your child.
However, a tutor who has to refer back to the notes to answer questions would be a no-no. Inexperienced tutor who are not confident of their teaching methods and would often fumble when teaching.

3. Passion
Thirdly, a tutor must have the PASSION to teach. Although this is one of the most important qualities of a good tutor, many tutors lack it. A passionate tutor who regards teaching as a fun and fulfilling job and will not rest till he sees improvements in his tutee. You can rest assured that your tutor will do his utmost to deliver the lessons in a fun and interesting way, where learning ceases to be a chore. And most importantly, passionate tutors inspire tutees to do well in examinations and instil in them the importance of education in Singapore. Passionate tutors do not mind going the extra mile to clear any doubts their tutee might have, even if it may take a little bit more creativity and time. This often means teaching beyond their job scope and sacrificing time on their part.