Individual progress is very subjective and personal.
It is important to keep in mind that achieving excellence in education is a never ending journey. Fortunately, competence can easily be cultivated through the development of new habits and skills. We must remember that we all have the ability and potential to grow, develop and evolve, and that all masters were once amateurs.
It can be very easy for our children to fall into the shackles of comparison with their peers who seem to be further ahead. We should remind our children that the only real competition they have is within themselves and the goal is always to become better than they were; to become a better version of themselves.
Achieving low scores in exams or not understanding a subject as quickly as others can be disheartening and demotivating for an adult let alone a young child developing their belief system. The pressures of maintaining a certain level of standard to survive through often what appears to be a competitive society, especially in the case of exam preparation such as the 11+ to obtain entry into particular schools can leave children feeling inadequate or left behind.
The great news is that your child can thrive in education by understanding the mechanics of making progress as well as developing and conditioning new habits that will help them become successful in education and exam preparation.
If your child is under performing, or has hit a “plataeu“ in their education, this could be down to a number of reasons:
1. Your child is not mastering the fundamental concepts of the subject.
There is constantly new information that your child is being exposed to that can feel very overwhelming to learn and understand as well as keep up with what has been taught in their previous lessons. It is absolutely critical that your child develops a ‘mastery mentality’.
It is so important to develop mastery and having a deep understanding of something instead of having weak knowledge in various areas of the subject. Bruce Lee said it best: ‘I do not fear the man who has practised a thousand kicks once, I fear the man who has practised one kick a thousand times’.
True mastery requires spending a high volume of time immersing in a topic or subject. Total immersion means to devote energy to truly understanding the principles of the subject by understanding the theory and being able to put it into practice.
The students that perform best in education have mastered the principles of all the modules of the subject and applied what they have learned through answering exam-style questions as well as continuously applied what they have learned.
2. Lack of consistency
‘Repetition is the mother of all skill’. Fundamentally, consistency is one of the greatest habits one can develop to achieve progress through constant review of the subject and its contents. If your child is underperforming to some degree, it is strongly encouraged that not only more time is spent on learning, but a higher frequency of revisiting material.
If your child is doing well, and received a high score in a test, it does not necessarily mean that they will stay there, nor does that mean that they should feel complacent. Education is an ongoing process and the mind is like a muscle. You constantly have to exercise it to strengthen it until it sinks into the subconscious mind.
Building a strong foundation is key; it’s like planting a tree – you do not see the results immediately, but through frequent nurturing, patience and trusting the process of consistency, the results will inevitably blossom. It is important to regularly enhance your child’s strengths through repetition and honing their “craft” as well as working on weaker areas in their study by consistently working towards improvement.
Staying consistent means regularly checking in with your child, or if you have a private tutor, he or she should regularly check in with your child. Your child’s tutor should plan lessons that adhere to a certain level of consistency to drive them towards progress. Developing a regular pattern of study can really help keep your child maintain momentum in their learning development.
3. Lack of independent learning
Having a private tutor or a mentor in any area for your child who they can model and learn from is truly invaluable and can save an enormous amount of time. A private tutor can help provide a “road map” to help you achieve your academic goals. A private tutor can hold your hand throughout the process which can really accelerate your child’s progress in education.
However, the key to true success comes from within your child. Students must develop the habit of discipline to review work completed in lessons. Ultimately, tutors can pass on their knowledge and add motivation during lessons, but ultimately it is the habit of discipline and independence that will create everlasting and sustainable results. Combining the two is what achieves exceptional results.
4. Your child may be a “perfectionist”
Whilst Telios Tutors is an advocate for attention to detail and careful planning and preparation, your child may be doing themselves a disservice if they struggle to get started, no matter how great their ideas are. For example, when writing a story, many students seem to struggle with even getting started and go through ‘paralysis analysis’ where they feel overwhelmed with so many potential ideas and struggle to actually write freely.
Whilst the creativity aspect of story is very important, in English assessments, the majority of marks are awarded for how descriptively they are written. The tools we often encourage students to adopt are at least 20 “wow words” in the form of high-level vocabulary; adjectives abstract nouns, and adverbs.
If you can resonate with your child being a perfectionist, we would encourage your child to just get started and be quick to commit to making a firm decision. Once a decision has been made for the topic of the story, for example, create a general plan of the story and then focus on developing this foundation through implementing the tools during the process.
Over time, this process will seem almost effortless as your child gets into the habit of breaking out the “perfectionist” mentality that once hindered action taking. Learning from mistakes and applying this knowledge through previous trial and error is where progress is truly made. It is better to take imperfect action than no action at all!
5. Your child does not feel confident or believe in themselves
Mindset and the state of mind creates one’s ‘blueprint’ for their decision making and ultimately their results. Why is it that some people consistently produce excellent results in most things they do? Whilst others struggle with getting the results they desire? The answer comes down to one’s self-image that they hold for themselves.
Confidence is something that can be cultivated and developed through competence. Private tutoring can really help your child accelerate their learning progress and we have seen how powerful private tuition can be for a child’s personal and academic development. The synergy created between a child and tutor can revolutionise their learning experience.
At Telios Tutors, we believe that students thrive best through empowerment and edification. To empower a student means to believe in them and inspire them; to edify means to authentically use words of encouragement to help them raise their standards and increase their potential.
To achieve competence, and to stay competent, one must develop the habit of discipline, which leads us to our next point.
6. Your child does not have a clearly defined purpose or incentive
To develop discipline, one must associate more pleasure in doing something and pain in not doing something. We all operate through incentives and we need to identify what it is that truly motivates us; our ‘why’. Being told we have to do something can sometimes appear discouraging from the recipient’s point of view.
Having a clearly defined purpose offers us an incentive to carry out the necessary operations to its execution. There will be times we lack motivation do fulfil a task to its completion, but having a compelling reason will help your child to really dip deep to find the motivation and discipline to continuously make progress in their education.
Each child will be incentivised by different mediums. For example, your child may love a particular sports team. You could encourage him or her by promising them that they will be awarded tickets to see their favourite sports team play. Then associate pain to poor effort, by suggesting that failure to fulfil a task will require them to redo it until a certain level of quality is adhered to.
Really understanding what it is that truly motivates your child and using this to your advantage whilst keeping their best interests at heart can be a powerful tool when influencing their behaviour and results.
7. Lack of revision plan and technique
Often we are busy just being busy with our time, and it can appear like we are effective, but are you using your time efficiently? Effectiveness comes from being productive with our time management. Leveraging time effectively is a skill that can easily be developed through drawing up a general plan of action.
Ask yourself ‘what do I need to achieve this month’, and then manage the topics into daily actionable tasks, or however often is required or realistically consumable for you. Many of us struggle with sticking to a plan, therefore I would strongly advise you to refer back to your purpose and identifying your nature and finding out what your driving force is.
8. You may need to increase intensity of study for immersion
Sometimes sacrifices need to be made in other areas in order to achieve mastery in education. There needs to be a state of “imbalance” for some time where more time is being spent on their education. To really master a topic well and accelerate progress, more time spent with a private tutor can prove to be very valuable.
A private tutor can help identify what type of learner your child is, provide personal guidance, regular reports and feedback to leverage progress. To develop mastery, it is important to fully immerse energy into something. Working with an experienced tutor can help your child can save an enormous amount of time figuring everything out independently.
Nothing great was ever created through “dabbling” or just scratching the surface. To really develop depth in knowledge and in order to speed up progress and maximise productivity, working with a private tutor can help your child develop on a personal and academic level.
Are you looking for a private tutor or mentor who can help accelerate your child’s progress and help develop mastery in a specific subject? Would you like some advice on what you can do as a parent to support your child in their education? Contact Us on 0207 867 3904 or send us an email: info@teliostutors.com.