Teaching services
How and What
I offer teaching in blocks of 5-6 sessions.
If I have not worked with you before, there will be an initial 1-hour session to meet with you and your child, and agree with you that this is the right kind of teaching for your child. I will also gather information and assess your child’s learning needs. This will be followed by 5-6 teaching sessions of 1 hour. My fee is £50 per hour. This includes planning, preparation and planning time. I charge in advance per block of agreed sessions. I will provide a short progress report after each completed teaching block.
Teaching sessions are planned specifically for your child. I try to connect with them and build a positive relationship so I can get to know their strengths and interests and identify successful ways to engage them in the activities I plan.
My aim is to build your child’s confidence and help them engage with learning in a positive way. For younger children, this often involves ‘disguising’ learning as play. I plan learning activities that are fun and enjoyable and adapted to specific needs and interests where possible.
Teaching sessions are planned to be cumulative (building on previous learning all the time). This allows for consolidation of previous learning and progression. The pace is adapted to the needs and engagement levels of your child.
I provide all teaching resources and adapt these specifically to the individual child.
When and Where
I work during school term time.
I can come to your home in the afternoon/early evening after school.
Areas Covered: SE3, SE10, SE7. If you live more than 2 miles from my home in SE3, I will charge a small mileage fee.
In some cases, subject to agreement, schools are able to facilitate me working with a child during the school day, or immediately after school on the school premises if, for example, the child attends after school club.
Who
Many children have lost out on early development and education input due to Covid lockdowns. Others may simply benefit from a boost so they can become more confident learners in school.
I can help with:
- Early literacy skills, speaking and listening
- Phonological awareness and phonics
- Reading for meaning (comprehension)
- Handwriting and spelling
- Activities addressing targets and recommendations set by other professionals (e.g. school, speech & language therapist (SALT), educational psychologist, dyslexia assessor, occupational therapist)
A note on my work with children with delayed language or speech production – Whilst I am not a qualified speech and language therapist, I have worked with young children for many years and can support them to develop simple language skills through activities that encourage sentence construction and the expansion of spoken vocabulary. Where there are reports available with targets and recommendations from other professionals, I can accommodate these in the planned activities.
Testimonials
See below for comments and feedback from parents of children I have worked with.
5 stars.
Kirsty has been tutoring our 6 years old son for over a year and half. Our son has a language and speech delay after COVID.
Kirsty writes a custom programme to tackle specific sounds and in a particular order, the progress has been evident. Not only does she manage to capture our son’s attention for a full hour with various games for his age, but he has made a big progress in his pronunciation of words and their understanding. She makes custom made books for our son with his pictures and other characters, they are his favourite books to read. We will keep these lessons going forward into primary school and when the time comes, move from the speech and language programme to primary school subjects tutoring to catch up.
We highly recommend Kirsty, she clearly loves working with kids and takes significant effort to prepare and cater for her pupils. Kirsty is friendly, personable and fun, our son loves her lessons.
William & Jenny
Our son has speech and language delay and has been seeing Kirsty once a week in our home for over a year. The difference she has made is just incredible.
To me, a love of reading is one of the most important things a parent can instil in their child. When we first met Kirsty, our son refused to be read to which broke my heart. We had tried everything! With her expertise, gentle encouragement, and creativity, he now pesters us for a bedtime story which is a dream come true. This in turn has led to him wanting to learn to read himself and he has come on at school enormously.
He sees Kirsty for an hour after school, which is a long time for a child. But because Kirsty is so creative and makes each lesson fun, my son looks forward to each visit, and all we hear is laughter coming from our living room.
Together they have created the most wonderful story books. Because my son is part of the story (including pictures of him in the little books they make) he has developed a love of reading that will now never leave him. We are eternally grateful to Kirsty for that. He is only 6 and we are not pushy parents, but we did want him to be on a level pegging with his peers. With his newfound confidence and love of reading, his speech and language skills are improving every week.
To anyone who wants the same for their child, I'd urge them to snap Kirsty up. We can't believe how lucky we are to have found her!
