Supporting children you love through difficulties at school or in life can be really challenging. We all want the best for our children and seeing them struggling is heart-breaking. Schools vary immensely in terms of their support provision and often not even the best truly manage to offer individual students the attention they may need. Parents often resort to tried and tested methods when they see a poor report or descending grades: waiting to flag the issue at school parent teacher meetings or seeking the support of a tutor in individual subjects. The good news is that, whilst these two methods can still be effective, there are a wider range of support options in place.
This blog post seeks to compare and contrast the difference between three approaches: tutoring, coaching and mentoring to help you choose which will be best in order for your child to truly thrive.
Benefits of Tutoring
Tutoring has been around for centuries and for those who can afford it across the individual subjects, it is a tried and tested method for achieving exam success. The purpose of tutoring should be to help students help themselves, or to guide them to the point at which they become an independent learner, and therefore no longer need a tutor.
Tutoring will often involve students working 1:1 or in small groups with a tutor to improve their exam grades. When carried out effectively, tutoring can also help build confidence, deal with misconceptions and deepen understanding of core concepts in a subject. Tutors will often base their tuition around past exam papers, textbook style examples and increasingly, online tools to aid learning. Every child is different in terms of their ability and speed of acquiring new concepts which means that 1:1 tutoring can cater to those needs effectively. Tutoring often benefits from guided homework to check for understanding and consolidate learning.
Tutoring is often most effective when either carried out by a qualified teacher or a professional tutor. They will have had the pedagogical training and experience to deliver effective results that are tailored to your child. With proper support and guidance, it can also be carried out by a university student who has studied the subject to one level above that at which your child is covering. Tutoring agencies are often a first point of call for parents due to their screening of tutors and their need to uphold their reputation. It can work out to be an expensive option though.
The main issue with tutoring lies with its limited long term and depth of impact. It is rare that tutoring fosters holistic growth and often only lasts so far as the exam is concerned. Tutoring often focuses on tricks to pass exams or improve grades, rather than dealing with core issues such as learning skills and intrinsic motivation.
Benefits of Coaching
Coaching is traditionally associated with sports. Every sports team performing at a decent level has a coach. The impact of a coach on results can be immense. Every sports fan can name coaches which have had a huge impact on their teams. A successful coach has the knowledge and human skills to bring out the best in each of their team members, ensuring that talent thrives.
The idea of coaching has been successfully applied in the business world, with forward thinking organisations using coaches to bring out the best in their employees. The education sector has sadly been slow to follow and although implementation has been mixed, is now starting to embrace the concept.
The impact of coaching can be very powerful. According to a comprehensive study carried out by the International Coach Federation in 2009, they found that 80% of those undertaking coaching improved their self-esteem/confidence with improved relationships, communication and interpersonal skills following closely after it. Ultimately, a coach should seek to unlock potential talent, helping someone to learn and solve problems for themselves. Not all coaching relationships work out. Amongst the key elements are finding a coach with personal rapport, compatibility and the expertise to build self-empowerment.
Coaching is frequently goal oriented and is most effective when the goals are identified by the person being coached. The main role of the coach is to provide a framework for analysing and breaking down the problem, looking for true causes and asking questions which allow the person being coached to find solutions for themselves. From my experience with teenagers, the challenge often lies with breaking down tasks and obstacles, encouraging them to find baby steps towards tackling an issue.
I’ve often found that coaching is most effective when carried out frequently at the beginning, to get to the root cause of issues and to build trust, with sessions becoming less frequent with time to the point where they become more like check ins. I’ve always found coaching most successful when it leads to intrinsic motivation and the confidence to direct their own path moving forwards.
Benefits of Mentoring
Mentoring is much more established within the education sector. Mentoring is when someone with significant experience such as a teacher, guides someone with less experience such as a student to achieve longer term growth. Students, in a class of 20-30 are often assigned a teacher mentor. I’ve come across exceptional mentors within schools yet sadly they are in a minority, often caused by lack of teacher time or energy given the immense other pressures such as grade performance faced by teachers.
Unlike coaching which focuses on the short-medium term, mentoring focuses on longer term growth. Seeking out a mentor could be used to address low confidence, improve longer term academic performance, develop socio-emotionally and find direction. An effective mentor really needs time to get to know the mentee to learn what makes them tick, where their insecurities lie and how to help them grow. Mentoring goes far beyond academic success and looks at the wider person. It is on this basis that Unbound Education’s Four Pillar approach has been developed. These are:
Purpose: finding direction in what we do, contributing to a community, establishing our values and feeling inspired by our future.
Relationships: establishing strong relationships with family, friends, teachers and those who we connect with less, developing our communication and social skills
Growth: developing intellectually and emotionally, building skills such as critical thinking, risk-taking, inquiry and reflecting on this journey
Happiness: developing our sense of fun, prioritizing our health, increasing our resilience to the challenges that face us and being more aware of the environment around us.
Mentoring, when carried out effectively, is a reciprocal relationship. One of my motivations behind working with young people for over 20 years is that every student is different and every student offers the mentor a new perspective. A confident mentor should be able to show their own weaknesses, challenges and insecurities. We all have them and teenagers find it refreshing when adults are transparent and open minded.
Which of these should I choose?
The decision to use tutoring, coaching and mentoring depends on the circumstances, main purpose and time available. The following table should help to identify which is best for you:
| Tutoring | Coaching | Mentoring |
Duration | 2 months + | 3 - 6 months | 6 months + |
Frequency | At least weekly | Weekly | Weekly => every other week |
Main purpose | - Exam preparation - Subject specific improvement - Consolidate core concepts | - Solve problems: eg motivation, report, stress - Improve intrinsic motivation - Identify goals | - Develop confidence, resilience and wellbeing - Growth: academic and emotional - Develop learning skills |
Short term impact | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ |
Long term impact | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Holistic impact: growth & wellbeing | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Longer term cost | 💲💲💲💲💲 | 💲💲💲 | 💲💲💲 |
Unbound Education offering | - Maths tutoring | - Yes | - Yes |
In conclusion, all three of these approaches can be very powerful when used effectively. It frequently comes down to establishing the right connection based on mutual trust and respect between the tutor/coach/mentor and the person they are supporting.
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