by Jessica Matthews, RDM Founder and Director
Maths and English tutoring is something many parents would consider helpful to their child’s education. Perhaps even more so after homeschooling where we had the opportunity to see our children’s strengths and weaknesses! The tricky part is knowing who can offer the right support.
My 8-year-old daughter Ava (year 3) has been trialing NumberWorks’nWords Epping for the past 4 weeks so we can see what they offer and share our experience with Ryde Mums.
NumberWorks’nWords offer tailored and student-specific lesson plans for each child in their care for both Maths and English. Sessions are from Monday to Friday – 3.30pm, 4.30pm & 5.30pm. They cater for kids ages 5 to 15 years (K – 10) and run off the school syllabus so it will be in line with your child’s school learning.
We’ve been going INTO their centre at Ryde Street, Epping but during the COVID period, they are also temporarily offering online tutoring, where the tutor can see your child but can also see what they are working on via the NumberWorks’nWords interface.
We’ve bee doing a 2 hour session, with one hour for Maths and one hour for English but there is also a one hour option where you either chose Maths OR English. Here’s how we found it.
By the way – at the bottom of this article we have a great RDM discount so keep reading!
The Process
Here’s some insight into what will happen from your first visit to the centre:
- Before you head in, you’ll answer some questions to assist with goal setting, your expectations and outline your aims e.g. catch up, additional work, revision etc.
- Your child will complete an assessment in centre so that the tutors can see where your child is at and you can see how your child enjoys it (this is an obligation free assessment).
- Discuss assessment results with Adam and Ash to work out a game plan for your child.
Activities
Fast Facts
- Each week your child will complete ‘Fast Facts’ – 25 addition and 25 subtraction questions.
- The aim is to complete them as quickly as possible to improve their mental arithmetic ability.
- The questions constantly change as your child grows and develops with their learning.
- It’s also a gentle introduction to a test-like an environment to build their confidence in these types of scenarios at school.
- Ava had excellent results in just 4 weeks and I imagine would continue to improve as time goes on – by week 4 she had halved her time doing the questions and improved her accuracy to 100%!
Learning Games
- After completing their learning modules they get to play a game.
- Tailored to their needs and goals, ‘learning’ games include activities like problem-solving, memory, creativeness etc
- The kids LOVE them and don’t find them a chore at all.
Topic Test
- As they progress through the modules, children are tested on what they’ve learnt.
- Of course, there is lots of encouragement from the tutors and certificates for the kids! You can clearly see their passion.
- The testing is at a level where kids feel encouraged by their results and want to keep going – Ava now LOVES the tests! ;p
My Feedback:
I was ready to assume this was just another learning institution and that Ava wouldn’t like it. She’s not a big fan of homework and extra learning is not usually something she’d be jumping at. Here’s what happened:
- After the first class, I lost count of how many times she asked me if it was time to go again or if she could go twice a week ;p
- She completed the single page refresher homework each week without complaint (#truestory)
- We set improving persuasive writing as one of her goals over the 4 weeks – Ava achieved her goal by week 3.
- Her enthusiasm continued for the whole 4 weeks and so much so that I paid to enroll her for 2 days in their holiday camp and for term 3 for both Maths and English.
The tutors constantly used positive reinforcement, celebrated all the wins and provided a lot of support and encouragement to all the kids. What I loved most is that Ava was confident and proud of what she had achieved. Let me tell you, this is a stark contrast to homeschooling, especially when it came to pervasive writing tasks!!
Over our 4 weeks I saw her confidence grow, her ability to apply maths solving skills dramatically improve (my dad even commented this week how much her maths has improved) and new abilities across the English modules.
Would I recommend it? Yes, 110% – so much so that as I mentioned above, we have enrolled as a paying student for term 3.
RDM Offer:
- Free Assessment – this is where they sit with your child and see where they are at for maths or English. This allows them to tailor a program for your child to ensure they get the most out of their sessions.
Owners Adam and Ash are more than happy to answer any questions you have. You will find all their contact details here on our business directory or via their website directly.
This is a #sponsored post but all the opinions in the article are our own.
