How CENTURY can support tutors with homework and parent engagement

Tutorsquared is a tutoring agency based in North London, aiming to create confident and independent thinkers. Children in year 4 and 5 attend in-person sessions on Saturday in preparation for 11+ assessments. Lessons are taught in English, Maths, Verbal and Non-verbal Reasoning.

We caught up with founders, Bernie Conway and Jane Lihou, both former teachers, to hear how CENTURY is supporting them and their learners.

How does your tutoring work?

Jane: Our Year 4 Foundation course begins in January and consists of two hours a week studying English and Maths. In Year 5 pupils begin the 11+ Preparation course in September, the four sessions include Maths, English, and Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning, with interview practice at the end.

Bernie: Jane and I use the word ‘holistic’ to describe our approach. It’s much more about instilling confidence. The feedback we get from parents is that their child is so much more confident in school, is more engaged and is achieving a higher standard. So we’re much more about, if you feel good, and you are confident, you will achieve better.

Why did you decide to join CENTURY?

Bernie: The main reason we chose you was because you work with tuition companies. A lot of other platforms are set up for schools, not tuition companies. As soon as you go on the website, you can see that you welcome tuition companies. When we made the enquiry, everything was just incredibly efficient.

What is your approach to using CENTURY as a homework tool?

Jane: Last year, we wrote and printed worksheets each week that were tailor made to practise the skills we taught in class. This year CENTURY has been, in the words of one of our parents, “a game changer.”

Everybody has the homework at home and we don’t need to worry about students forgetting or losing the worksheets. We set nuggets to reinforce what has been taught in the lesson and to revise concepts taught previously – children can complete them at their own pace or catch up on them later if they have a busy week at school.  Our pupils attend a variety of different schools and consequently have different homework requirements. And for those parents whose children don’t get any homework, and would like extra, the individual learning journey is fantastic because it’s bespoke. It’s really served us well.

How do you use the diagnostic assessments?

Bernie: We use them regularly throughout the term.  

Jane: We look at the results to see evidence of progress. We love the data that we get back from CENTURY, it’s so clear.

How do you use the data dashboards?

Jane: Three times a year we have a zoom parent-teacher meeting for 30 minutes with every parent. We show the parents how to sign in as a student and they appreciate the feedback as well. They can see how long their child spends on an activity.

Bernie: And also at this stage, for those children that are going for competitive entry, we’ve said their child’s scores need to be green (meaning a result of 70% or above).

Jane: Parents are also really grateful to have a bit more insight into how their children are performing, as it’s often hard to gauge how they are doing compared to their peers. On CENTURY they can see if their child needs to improve their score on something.

How are the children engaging with the platform?

Bernie: They like it because they can get badges and rewards.

Jane: They really like CENTURY. They find it easy to use.

Has it reduced your workload at all?

Jane: Yes – enormously! We love it!

Bernie: It’s huge! It’s incredibly efficient and has freed up more time for teaching as we are not using any lesson time dealing with lost worksheets!

Have you seen an impact using CENTURY?

Bernie: They definitely do more homework than last year and that can only be a good thing. We’ve only been using it since September and we can see the improvement. We’ve had parent feedback about academic progress as well.

Jane: It’s a combination of consolidation and extension.

Bernie: With a worksheet, parents are more inclined to intervene, so the homework you’re receiving back on paper isn’t always necessarily what the child has done. Parents are more inclined to let them get on independently with CENTURY.

What are your plans for moving forward with CENTURY?

Bernie: We’re going to continue with it. At no point since we started have we doubted our decision to join CENTURY.

To learn more about using CENTURY as a tutoring agency, click here. To book a demo, click here.