Most tutoring offers the same promise:
Fix what's going wrong at school, get the grades up, and the confidence will follow.
Sometimes that works. But I've also seen it fail too many times to rely on it.
Confidence based on grades is not real confidence. One bad test, one hard term, and the whole thing collapses again.
I work the other way around:
We start with your teen discovering who they are as a thinker. Someone who can argue with a book, wrestle with a difficult idea and enjoy the struggle of it.
We don't hide from the difficulties that their neurodivergence causes for them. We learn about them - and we learn how to adapt for them.
Gradually, the stories they'd been telling themselves, 'I'm hopeless', 'I'm dumb' - they disappear like a puff of wind. Not because we told them they were smart and brilliant and wonderful (although they are) - because they proved it to themselves.
The grades do usually follow. But they're a nice byproduct, not the point.
I teach English...but it's not just English that they learn
Sure we learn how to read and analyse books, poetry and the rest (yep, even Shakespeare. Especially Shakespeare).
And how to write convincing stories and descriptions. Or persuasive letters, articles and speeches.
And how to revise (when you're an ADHDer). Or take notes and annotate poems.
All the things you'd expect.
But what we're REALLY doing is creating teenagers who love learning again.
Showing them that they are capable.
That their brains are fine (more than - amazing, actually).
That a broken system, doesn't reflect their ability at all.
And we get teenagers that start believing in themselves again - as thinkers, students and explorers: curious, capable and loving learning.
In short. We get our summer kids back.
Learning with Katie was AMAZING. I feel so much more confident now.
- C, year 11
"Thank you, thank you, thank you. We will miss our weekly therapy!"
- Parent of R, year 11
"Would I do another course? 10 hundred percent. Sign me up now!"
- S, year 10