The Jubilant James

Tash: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to another conversation with one of my students. We have the lovely Jay in front of us today, who is a new to Limitless Learning this academic year. He wanted to improve his grade because he wanted, he had high hopes for himself, knew that he could do better and wanted some extra learning to be able to achieve those high grades and through our time together we’ve been filling in the holes along the way and he succeeded at completing six grade six and seven a material with ease. So hiya! So first question I’ve got for you is what is it that you liked most about our sessions together and how might that have helped you?

Jay: I think the fun methods, which you use such as like using games, board games and stuff really helps me to how it’s made to remember how to do things.

And ultimately when things are fun, helps to stick in [00:01:00] the brain a bit more.

Tash: Definitely. I agree with that. I’ve always wanted you to have that kind of feeling of, oh, do you remember that weird lesson that Tasha did with a game of Jenga or something like that? Because sometimes you just need that visual aspect within your brain to be triggered within an exam hall, because quite often you’re so overwhelmed in that experience.

This is in general, most people are overwhelmed and then it’s almost like. When did I learn that at school? But if you can have in your mind in terms of tutoring as well when did we do that? Oh, okay. Is when we was playing the card game or, you know, it was Surds, so, whatever it is, I always thought that might be a good tactic to help you retain the information, I suppose.

So obviously you’ve mentioned in terms of it, I suppose, helping it stick. Is there anything else that you think has helped you with. Anything at school or any tests?

Jay: I was thinking is maybe a bit more confident, especially when I’m going into exams. After [00:02:00] going over the topics and stuff.

When going into exams, I see questions now and I feel more confident, whereas before maybe if I saw a question, I’ll kind of move on because I felt a bit like, am I scared to ask the question, but now we’re more confident, know it benefits me because it will help me to get better grade.

Tash: Absolutely. And I think the thing with Jay was that you are and this, I think goes across the board because you’re so like determined, resilient, and you want to get it right. I could almost see that when you was like, almost butting your head against the question, it deflated you. Whereas actually you could do it. I knew that you could do it. If we put some tools in your toolbox so that you knew, okay, I need to do X, Y, and Z and that if we had that, then you’d be able to effectively answer the questions. And it was just giving you that level of self-belief that rather than it, letting, letting it [00:03:00] deflate you that you could actually move forward with it and then think, okay, let me tackle it. Yeah, sometimes it’s okay to have a go at it first and then start figuring it out as you go along with the knowledge that you’ve got and I think, well I’m hoping any way, that that is something that you’ll be able to take into your exam, even if you’re not a hundred percent sure of the answer as well, because we’re not supposed to know everything at the end of the day. Okay. What do you know is is different than between school and tutoring?

Jay: I think just because it is one to one that it helps me more, because I can go for like specific things. And if I’ve got any questions I can ask you, whereas in school, maybe. I’d be a bit less comfortable to ask the teacher, but I wouldn’t really want it to like embarrass myself really because yeah, just, I feel like especially, so not simple topics and stuff. When I can ask you to help almost like go over it again, how it was me, [00:04:00] because or, it just builds up my knowledge again, makes me more confident again.

Tash: I think the thing is, isn’t it there’s, there’s this I think for everybody, is that fear of like putting up your hand and being like, oh God, like what people going to think of me?

What’s my teacher going to think of me and stuff like that. Whereas sometimes if you’ve got that person that you can speak to that, you know, there’s no judgment there there’s no, you know, nobody’s going to think anything of you, it’s just, can you help me with this? And it’s like, Let’s go through X, Y, and Z, and start at the beginning so that we can see, okay, where, where is it that you’re not understanding it rather than just going straight into, I dunno how to do algebraic fractions when you don’t understand the basics of fractions of fractions or algebra or whatever, we can start at the beginning and work our way through it to try and get you to that end goal which is obviously really important. Okay. If you had like a magic wand over school, And you had one wish. What would you wish for? [00:05:00] What would you wish that they know?

It’s a hard question. Yeah.

Jay: I probably wish maybe the classes were a little bit smaller, so almost could spend a bit more time with the teacher to again, how, how understand things more like if you, if there are less people in the class, it means it’s, you just got more time to spend with individual people. And again, that was, how was it if you speak to the teacher a bit more and make you more confident and again, almost says like judgment will kind of go away. Like feel like you could, you could ask the teacher anything you want an again, that would help you benefit, because again, it was just make you more confident.

Tash: I think that’s the thing, isn’t it? Because class sizes and this isn’t any fault of the schools or the teachers really it’s more to do with funding, [00:06:00] but because the class sizes are so big, it is impossible to know in as much detail as a tutor, for example, like where the students are, particularly if you’re, you know, most students are scared part of their hands and speak to you, it can be quite challenging in terms of knowing where, where your falling short, where you’re thinking, oh, I don’t understand that because it’s hard to communicate that when there’s such big class sizes and I think as well, because of that, the speed of the lessons end up going quite quickly as well and to do the amount of content you got to get through, but I think it ends up going to a really fast speed. You don’t really know which students are with you and who aren’t, on the little wander through, I don’t know whatever the topic is. And then you thinking, oh, I have no idea what’s going on. And before, you know, it you’re that you’re onto the next topic and that’s where the gaps start to form and that’s when you need to fill them in. I suppose we’ve kind of touched on how I could help with that in terms of working on the [00:07:00] one-to-one having a chat about things and working through it. Is there anything that you’d like me to know based on our sessions together that I might not already know might be things that I could improve it could be things I’ve done well?. Well, it could be whatever you want.

Be kind Jay.

Jay: It’s kind of like going off a bit, but I kind of say almost like us to spend a bit more time like together. No, because it would allow us to get through more and yeah, like I said, I feel like I learn better with you than I do with my own teacher. So Yeah, it would just benefit me.

Tash: Yeah. So somebody thought you need more time. Yeah. You know, what if I could give more of my time to you, Jay? I [00:08:00] honestly would because I can see yeah, I don’t say this, everyone out. I can see how hard you are working, that determination, that perseverance, that drive that you’ve got within you and that’s within you been a really fantastic footballer, but you’re transferring those skills as well within your learning. And to be able to then tackle subjects that you don’t like as much like Maths makes me want to do well. It makes me want to invest time in you and stuff like that. And so honestly, like if I could give more of my time, even if it was for free, like I would, I would do that for you because I genuinely have faith that you are you’re the business. You’re going to do it. You’re going to smash it in whichever avenue you go in life. I know that you’re going to do well. And I truly mean that. And I think that you’ve been an absolute pleasure to work with. Over the last year or so. And I genuinely hope that you get everything you deserve because you truly, truly deserve it.

And I’m hoping it, [00:09:00] when it comes to those results day and you rip for that envelope, you get that kind of, yeah I did it, I did it at the subject that I didn’t enjoy as much I did it and I smashed it. And I hope, I hope that hopefully we get that. I think that you deserve it.

Jay: Yeah. Thank you!