Friday 10 May 2013

Chickens and Tutoring

It can sometimes be quite difficult juggling my family life and my working life. I  suppose it doesn't help that I am based at home.  There are so many advantages to working at home: I have everything here at hand, my commute is non existent, I am here if the children need me.  However I am also having to rescue our four chickens from neighbour's gardens or retrieving the poor things after they've been chased by a dog. Also dealing with frightened lambs who have somehow managed to make their way into my garden but then can't get back into the field. Not to mention removing large spiders from children's bedrooms.

On balance though, I am very happy working away here looking out over the open fields watching the chickens and lambs interact and watching the sheep chase off our kitten when he tries to stalk anything in their field.

This time of year is my favourite time with everything growing in the garden and the promise of summer.  However it is also the busiest time with regard to tutoring.  There just aren't enough hours in the day to satisfy the needs of various pupils who want extra lessons before their all important exams. Also to be able to answer the phone to new enquiries and spend the time making sure that the tutor I place them with is the most suitable for them.

I love to tutor when there is a fixed goal to aim for - it is immensely rewarding helping someone to achieve their academic goals and often to surpass their expectations.  Just recently when the last GCSE results were out it was great to learn that Tamsin had passed her GCSE Maths particularly as she had missed so much school due to illness  She was over the moon as were her parents - it was a privilege to share in that success. 

Most of my own tuition is maths but as the summer progresses the balance switches to more and more 11+ work for Ripon Grammar entrance exams.  I suppose it is my logical brain but I really do enjoy working through the 11+ papers, so much so that I've had fun writing some of my own.  Some of my year 5 pupils are really quite little characters too and I enjoy my hour with each of them.

In August, I am taking on a huge personal challenge, which is to ride 100 miles (102 actually but who's counting) in and around London.  I am doing this with Phil, my husband, and we are trying to raise as much money as possible for Leukaemia Research.  We are busy planning a science activity session on 30th July. All of the money raised is going to the charity but I have to say we're really looking forward to the day - there will be lots of hands on experiments, some of which are going to be explosive!  I am, however, a bit more concerned about the bike ride.  I need to train (and train a lot) but I'm too busy.  Perhaps if I commuted to work by bike that would count as training - but I work at home!