Summer can be a tricky season for students and tutors alike. When the last bell of the school term rings, many students switch their brains off and don’t plan on turning them on again until the next term stubbornly arrives. This can, of course, signal a downturn in business for tutors. To help combat the summer slump, we have put together a short guide on how to be a successful summer tutor and keep kids active so they don’t struggle when it is time to go back to school.
1. How to find work as a summer tutor
This may seem obvious, but the best way to find work as a summer tutor is to let the parents who already hire you know you are available. Many parents might not think to keep a tutor on over the summer holidays so you should warn them of the summer slump and offer your services to prevent it from happening to their little genius.
To appeal to the leisurely summer mindset, offer fun summer courses instead of your regular lessons. These can be individual or group lessons and should include fun games that expand your students’ minds. If you are hosting group lessons, try offering a discount to attract more business. If a student brings a friend, they can both get a ten percent discount, or something to that effect.
Then, towards the end of the summer holidays, you can host refresher/back to school courses that will help prepare students for the year ahead and hit the ground running when they go back to school.
As well as finding students in your area on Care.com, you should offer online tutoring services via video chat, as that way you can offer your services to students outside of your area.
2. Study topics you should focus on
With no set curriculum to focus on over the summer, coming up with engaging and productive topics can be difficult for tutors. But thankfully there are many different areas that are perfect for the summer season.
Firstly, help your students with their summer homework and projects. Most students are assigned at least some work over the holidays but usually leave it until the week before school starts to get around to it. By this time, they have likely forgotten the context of what they were learning as well as a lot of their knowledge on the subjects. To prevent this, create a summer plan with your students to tackle their homework and projects so the topics stay fresh in their minds and they show up at school fully prepared and proud of their work.
If your student is going into a GCSE or A Level year, exam prep is a great way to spend your summer lessons. Be sure to go over the topics that they struggled with the previous term as well as preparing for the upcoming curriculum. Practice/mock tests are great ways of preparing your students for their upcoming exams.
3. Organizational skills
As well as specific study topics, using the summer months to teach your students time management and organizational skills is very productive, particularly if they are coming into an exam year. Teach your students how to create study plans, take the best notes and tips for retaining knowledge. If they have exams coming up, teach them exam time management and stress management.