New home tutoring marketplace set to help parents boost their child’s educational outcome by up to 50%
“Number chunking, number lines and synthetic phonics – new teaching techniques brought in with the Labour Government’s 1999 Numeracy and Literacy Strategies – now mean that 95% of parents keen to help their children boost their grades are simply, ill-equipped to do so. Most parents do not understand how their children are taught, and it really isn’t a surprise”, says Geoffrey Wheating, Founder and Director of www.tute.com.
“In fact, it’s already proven that parental engagement, coupled with the right technology, can improve educational outcomes by as much as 50 per cent1 and supporting learning from home is crucial for improving results”, he says. “Working hand in hand with Dr Julie Cogill, Former Assistant Head and Chief Education Officer for the BBC and a strong team of educationalist, Tute, is developing a library of videos and accompanying resources which teach parents about the new methods used in schools and help them to gain the confidence to help their child effectively.
“These videos and their accompanying resources make up just one single element of the tute.com offer - an offer that is designed to ‘turn tutoring on its head’ and redefine the market in a bid to drive up the standards”, continues Geoffrey Wheating.
A mobile and interactive media pioneer and Former Director of Strategic Development at Reuters UK, Geoffrey, together with his Partner Sean Gardner, Founder of Moneyexpert.com, breathe.com and a Senior Marketeer at Orange, have radical plans to shake up the market. All have been heartily welcomed by parents, pupils and key players within the education industry who have been working alongside them on the development of Tute.
Launched as a Beta to encourage user and market feedback, ensuring that the rollout falls in line with user expectation and market needs, Tute.com makes its services very user friendly and flexible. Once parent users have signed up they can choose from a range of Tuting products available on demand, including answers on how to overcome homework problems within minutes of being asked and access to an accredited, national Tutor marketplace populated only with CRB-checked3 ‘qualified teachers’ offering tutoring in the home, or online, at any time. National curriculum content, user postings and past exam papers are also included.
“But it is going to be so much more”, says Geoffrey. “Our vision is very clear and what will make Tute special is that it will run like a social network - allowing students to discuss work with each other, their tutors, peers and homework buddies.” It will also make full use of the vast array of communications technologies including chat rooms, instant messaging, and audio and video conferencing.
“Our ultimate intention, as the education market finally starts to let technology play as bold a role as it has in other markets, is to build the UK's largest and most ‘trusted’ online learning community and to deliver the first on-demand fully blended learning solution to KS1 - KS4 students. A solution that within education will, for the first time, work and engage with its audience in the way they engage with technology in their own lives.”
For further information about Tute.com please visit www.tute.com.
1BECTA, Exploiting ICT to improve parental engagement, moving towards online reporting.
3. Criminal Records Bureau
