SEND Parenting Podcast
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I am a mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast.
As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity, I have uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks.
Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade.
SEND Parenting Podcast
EP 136: Education systems fail neurodivergent children with Julia Silver, founder of Qualified Tutor
Education systems often fail neurodivergent children, but the right support can transform their learning journey. Julia Silver, founder of Qualified Tutors and mother to five neurodivergent children, shares how tutoring can rebuild confidence and love of learning for children struggling in traditional education.
• Understanding that schools can't meet every child's needs – even with the most dedicated teachers
• How tutoring offers personalized support that goes to where the student is
• The importance of rehabilitation periods when children are excluded from school
• Finding tutors who build relationships with both parents and children
• Seeing neurodivergent children as teaching us to rethink our assumptions about education
• Recognizing that academic success doesn't equal life success
• The value of offering children autonomy rather than demanding compliance
• Teaching executive functioning skills to help children feel in control
• Statistics showing 25% of UK children now use tutors, yet the profession remains unregulated
• Research evidence that tutoring creates five months of academic progress
• Building a child's ability to connect effort with attainment
• How AI might complement human teaching for truly personalised learning
• The importance of parents accepting they can't do it all
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Helping you to support your neurodiverse child's sleep challenges. Though designed with ADHD in mind, the strategies benefit all neurodiverse children.
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Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. Before we get into this week's episode, I wanted to share something with you. If getting your child to sleep feels like a two to four hour battle, you're not alone. I know I've been there, but research actually shows that 70% of children struggle with sleep with ADHD and 50 to 80% of children with autism also experience sleep problems. So that's why I created the 30 day better sleep starter guide. Although it's designed with ADHD in mind, the strategies support all neurodiverse children. So, as we settle back into routines after that long summer holiday, this is the perfect time to focus on your children's sleep. You can download a free copy at sendparentingcom backslash sleep or through the link in the show notes. Here's to better nights sleep, which then lead to calmer mornings. Now, speaking of support, today's episode is another area where our children need it most education. They need support both in and out of school. It most education. They need support both in and out of school.
Speaker 1:I have the pleasure of being joined by Julia Silver, founder of Qualified Tutors and author of Love Tutoring. She's a school leader and mother of five neurodivergent children. Julia bridges two worlds education and lived and experienced struggling with schools as a parent. Her children have been excluded, they've been kicked out of school and she's found a way to navigate the system Together. We will explore how hard that was to see her children struggling in a system that didn't see them, and how she's transformed that pain into advocacy and a movement that's reshaping how we look at tutoring From executive function to rebuilding trust in our children's learning.
Speaker 1:This is an episode full of hope and also practical wisdom. Let's dive in. So welcome Julie. It is such a pleasure to have you on the Send Parenting podcast. I am so excited to have you on today because you bridge two really powerful worlds that of education and then also lived an experience of being a mom to neurodiverse children. And I mean you're not just a mom to one neurodiverse child. You have five neuro spicy children, so you know you have your stripes in terms of neurodiversity and parenting, but you also have the knowledge in terms of education. So I'm really excited to talk to you today and maybe we could start off with a little bit about you know, your journey as a school leader and how that I don't know collided or intersected with your journey with your children.
Speaker 2:My gosh, that's a great place to start and it's probably something that I haven't quite articulated before. So I was a school leader of my daughter's school and that was because it's a small community school and they and I just sort of stepped into a vacancy and it just sort of developed organically. But the leadership role is a very powerful role because you have the opportunity to support the adults that support the children. So there's immense reach there. So, to dial back a little bit, my children are 19, 17, there. So to dial back a little bit, my children are 19, 17, 16, 13, and 10 at time of recording, which means I have one leaving the teenage tunnel and one going into the teenage tunnel at the same time, which is quite an adventure.
Speaker 2:Number two is thoroughly adhd, um, and wonders whether he's asd. I'm also really quite adhd myself, um, and I think it just occurred to me this morning, we were chatting. My son and I have a gorgeous relationship now, um, I wonder whether I had five children because I'm adhd and because I have this need for more stimulus. You know, two was never going to work for me. It always needs, it needs to feel like stretch in everything I do, julie you might be exploiting my desire to foster, then, in a similar vein.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. One's not enough. I can relate, I can relate. And you need two dogs, right? Yeah, exactly, there you go.
Speaker 1:Maybe three.
Speaker 2:Maybe three. So that's right, we have a different biting point and I think that's a really interesting thing anyway. So um Ben, who is now 17, um, was at home with, uh, depression and anxiety for about 18 months. He was on the sofa and this was just post-covid and I'd lost my father just before covid and I learned very quickly that mental health is catching Actually mental ill health is catching probably both and I went right down with him and it was a really, really difficult period for us and we've navigated through it. He managed to get some GCSEs with the help of tutoring, which I hope we'll talk about shortly, but really it's very much been about meeting his needs and helping to feel accepted and, you know, within a home and actually he sort of stretched the boundaries of our home, which was really interesting because we became a far more accepting, inclusive, patient, understanding family because of learning to support him.
Speaker 2:Um, so that now, when my 13 year old got himself expelled last year for doing something stupid and dangerous which had been a process of escalation which nobody had really understood and had been identified initially with depression, but really there was adhd andD underlying, we just had the diagnosis, we just had started the medication and then he did something so stupid that he got himself expelled.
Speaker 2:He's been at home for 11 months and although I've been providing tutoring here and there, it's mostly been about rehabilitation. And a friend of mine who home educates said that there is a period of unschooling that can happen, and I've definitely seen that with him. So he's going back into a special school in a couple of weeks time. He's nervous, he's excited, but the person who runs the school understands that he's academically able, that he's off the charts in terms of energy and that he really needs somebody who is going to, to go to where he is and move forward from that.
Speaker 2:And that's really why I'm so passionate about tutoring is because what we do as tutors is we go to where the student is, and what I've seen in schools for myself as a school leader and for my children is that it is too difficult to meet the needs of every child in a class of 30. And even the most superhero of a teacher won't manage to do that consistently every day, and that for those children who are particularly sensitive. You know we talk about the canaries in the coal mine For those children who are particularly sensitive, they just can't cope with their needs not being met. And that's really where that intersection of what the school can do and what the child needs is where it all falls apart, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's finding, as you so eloquently put, the right solutions for that child, and sometimes that's not available to you in education or it takes a process and fights and tribunals to get to that right setting. So it's and the child's life goes on during that period of time which you have had through the journey with your children, and it's been really interesting that because I worked once with an educationalist who talks about the lie of school.
Speaker 2:And the lie of school is if you do well at school, then you will do well at life, and you must do well in every year and every test. And it's not really true. You know my number four, my 13 year old. He made his mistake in year eight, so he missed year eight, which is the best year to miss. Nothing's happening in year eight. Yeah, my 16 year old, my 17 year old.
Speaker 2:He missed his GCSE years, which you would have thought would be a problem. But academically he was completely able and so, with the correct support, he was actually able to get those GCSEs, although he never went into school except to do the exams. And you can imagine how stressful that was, because just the tension of being in an exam condition was difficult enough. So there was a lot of being really really clear about what our objectives are. So we handled the marks, his GCSE marks, as practice. It was just practice for doing exams. It didn't matter what you got. If you sat down to do the paper, you'd already succeeded.
Speaker 2:Um, and, and that's always been a strong focus with me. So my um, my third child, my first daughter. She just got her gcse results this week and she did so well and we're so proud of her. We celebrated the night before the exam now because she'd done the work. You know, yeah, love it and and really, in terms of lifelong learning, those are the behaviors that are going to set a child up for success. So I do not believe that a person has to be successful in a sort of linear way through the school program in order to have a good life, because I know lots of people who are academically able and not particularly successful in life, and the other way around. So I think it's important to sort of and I think that these children, these send, these neurodiverse children, are the ones that force us to rethink our assumptions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean I had to completely shred my my programming. It was completely not fit for purpose. You know, my I was raised that you have to. You know, do well at school and you have to go on to further education, otherwise you will be an absolute failure. And look, I mean it was really hard as a dyslexic and the way that I took tests was really difficult. For me as well was to become a doctor. Am I practicing as a doctor now? No, I'm running a podcast, writing books, doing something totally different. Yes, I have practiced as a doctor, but, as you say, it's not linear and you'll have many different careers in your life. They all interconnect and you build on them, but they can be very different.
Speaker 2:Sheryl Sandberg has a stunning metaphor for this. She says careers are no longer ladders, they're more like well, she says jungle gyms, I would say a climbing frame right where you move sideways and back and up and down, and it's more playful and exploratory and the view is much better because the view on a ladder is only of the guy above you.
Speaker 2:So you have much more to see when you're exploring like that, and I think that that's a really exciting way to guide children. So you know, when you say about your assumptions as a parent, from your own experience as a child, we see that a great deal. You know, everybody thinks they're an expert in education because they went to school, whereas you know the minute that you're dealing with a child who learns differently and I've just finished your mini series where you interview Alexandra, and so I really feel like I have a sense of Alexandra now Every time that I meet with a parent about you know, supporting their child.
Speaker 2:It's very much about understanding the pedagogical approach of the parents the expectations of the parent are are key and and the role of a tutor is really as a partner in supporting that parent and that child and getting what they need.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you actually have to push back at the parent and say not, not this, not this week, you know, or maybe we need to adjust our expectations or maybe we need to do something totally off the charts with this child to to to really inspire them. And I'm really lucky because the tutoring that I do is academic mentoring, so I don't have to cover a curriculum in science or maths or English. What I rather do is build them up and give them that learning muscle and the language around understanding how they learn, and not in a scientific way, not in a technical way. One of the things I do is most sessions I introduce a big idea. So last week, well, at the moment, we're doing back to school activities, so the students are writing a letter to themselves which they will open at the end. We're doing back to school activities, so the students are writing a letter to themselves which they will open at the end of the year.
Speaker 2:Of course there's a really structured template, because how overwhelming is the task of writing a letter to yourself, unless it's a template, um, but the big idea that I introduced first is ready fire aim. How many times do you and I in our day ready fire aim? First we fire and then we aim yeah.
Speaker 2:And lots of times that's fine, it's spontaneous. You know I'll read a book and I won't read the blood first because I don't want to know what's going to happen. But when it's your school life or when it's things that you're struggling with or things that are important to you, you need to aim before you fire. So just taking a child through that you know really clear visual of if you want the arrows to hit the target, you need to aim first, seems like an obvious thing to say, but it actually is a visual and a mental hook that goes quite deep with them. And I talk to children about getting comfortable, with being uncomfortable, because if you don't step out of your comfort zone you never get to learn anything new. And and they've always learned this in you know, various social examples, or when I joined the netball club, um, but when you talk about it in the context of maths, it all becomes so much more scary.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, came up with the concept of academic mentoring and the study skills work that I do because of my number two, ben, who would have been fine, except that he was just overwhelmed, and had I realized earlier that my role was to reduce the overwhelm for him, I'm sure he would have had a different journey. So what I do with the students that I work with is I have a planner. We talk about what we're doing every week, all week, you know, and it doesn't always have to follow through. We don't always do all the things on our to do list, but giving the students the executive functioning skills to feel in control of their life. You know, I don't know if you've come across this phrase pathological demand avoidance logical demand avoidance.
Speaker 1:Yes, in fact I just did a podcast, recorded it actually yesterday, with two people in education creating a book for kids to read about it, because it's the lesser known neurodiversity really. You know it doesn't get as much airtime but it's definitely something that comes up a lot on my Send Parenting what's Up community a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm curious to know what you think about this. So one of the tutors in the qualified tutor community redefined the term. Rather than PDA, pathological demand avoidance, they said persistent demand for autonomy.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what we talk about in the podcast. That's so funny and how different it is to look at from that different lens. But they even said that that is almost too strict of a you know, of a, of a kind of definition as well, so why not just leave it? You know even that in their, in their minds, was too, too prescriptive. But you know, I, I feel that it definitely shifts that conversation or shifts that from a very medical, almost like you've got something wrong with you, you know what I mean what?
Speaker 1:um, I mean it's, it's quite common in medicine, but it's you know. It sounds like you know you're. You might be a serial killer. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:I, that's the kind of connotations it has in your mind, and uh yeah, so I completely agree, I think you on my journey of parenting, and one of the things I do at the moment is I work in early years, which is just the absolute best. We forget. We forget that we're trying to develop independent humans. Michelle Obama says that her mother used to say I'm not raising children, I'm raising adults. Yeah, we have this tendency to look for compliance. We don't need compliance. We need independent thinkers who make decisions.
Speaker 1:And want autonomy and don't just follow what everyone else is doing. But yet their entire childhoods we try and do that with them. Like I said to my daughter, right now she's still at home off of for summer holidays and she's like I'm like you need to take a shower today, and she's like I don't want to. And I'm like, well, you have to take one today, but you can choose. Do you want to do it in the morning or in the afternoon? And I know she's not going to want her do it this morning.
Speaker 1:But because of all I've learned from all the wonderful people I speak to on this podcast, I'm like you know what? No, okay, you choose when you're going to do it and then this afternoon, no complaints, you go and do it because I'm giving you that power. But then you have to own it and she's like all right, well, more you know. Probably this evening there will be a little bit of backlash, but it will be less, because she's been able to make that choice and she's made the decision of when she's going to shower.
Speaker 2:I think also and I have this conversation with my 10-year-old at the moment I think also the next step of that conversation becomes we do what we say we're going to do. That's called integrity. So I don't mind when you shower, as long as you shower. So if you tell me that's when you're going to do it. You're just holding yourself accountable. It's really not about me, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it just it changes. It changes how you parent, and then it gives them the skills for when, as you say, become adults. Like you know, obama, mrs Obama, is she Mrs Obama? Michelle Obama, mrs sounded really strange.
Speaker 2:I think it's not her.
Speaker 1:I know I wasn't sure I have read her. I've listened to her book. Actually it was a bit long so I didn't get through the whole thing, but it's a great book. Yeah, it's what happens as they're adults and there's so many elements to that that both school and parenting don't actually prepare for.
Speaker 2:There's a few things I wanted to share with you about that. Number one is trying to get an EHCP for my son, and also the process with the mental health support you know, dealing with CAMHS and all of that for the older one. They're Ben and Daniel, by the way. That would be easier. So with both of them I found myself, and I found all the power taken away. You know, and, yeah, and, and, and, how disempowering you know there would be moments where letters for appointments would drop on the doorstep the day after the appointment was set for, you know?
Speaker 2:or or emails where it's all in acronyms and they never once explain what the acronym stand for.
Speaker 2:There are so many ways that the system disempowers us, and if you think back to that idea of pathological demand avoidance, we have lived in a world that has encouraged people to comply, and we've heard lots and lots about the industrialized school system and how that's no longer fit for purpose, and I really think that that's the crunch point is that we have to and it's a genuinely painful process to open your mind to what, what a different way could look like.
Speaker 2:You know that is not about crowd control, so that was the other thing I wanted to share with you as a school leader. There's a certain amount of crowd control involved in running a school and a classroom and all of that, and compliance is part of that, and yet it is not who we want them to be as people. Having said that, we also need them to be able to cope in group situations in employment in big organizations, and so learning a different language for how to choose, how to opt in to the correct behavior, rather than having it imposed upon you, seems to be the direction I'm looking towards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean it's so important in the workforce you don't want little robots on your team. I've run large, huge teams in pharmaceutical companies and I would treasure very different people, because one strength is another one's weakness, and then it's about them communicating and it can cause you know, it can cause friction, but also they learn from each other and each person has their own assets that they bring and then realizing that they're an integrable part of the team with their own individuality. We lose that in education because we want them all to kind of be the same and do the same thing.
Speaker 2:So much sitting behind that. You know, most teachers have never worked outside of school, They've never existed outside of school. They went to school, to university, to teacher training and back to school. So they've never been in the outside world, so they don't know what's expected of the variety of a team. It's just not in their lived experience.
Speaker 1:I think also. No, I lost my thread. It happens to all of us, especially women of a certain age. It goes away. But I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1:Even myself, who has lived in the big world, I, similarly, as you do to doctors, who you think know exactly what you know, they're going to know exactly what's right, which sometimes you know they don't you put your trust in them completely. Same with education. I put my trust in education that it was going to do the best for my daughter. That's what I thought, and the fact that she was failing so miserably in it and not succeeding was somehow my daughter's fault. There was something wrong with her.
Speaker 1:That was my first logical step, because they know education, knew what was right, and then my education started and had to rip off everything to understand that no, they actually have no idea what's right for my daughter. I have to find the people that know what's right for my daughter and the schools that know how to make my daughter thrive. But I had to let go of that. I trust teachers implicitly, just like you can't trust doctors implicitly either. You need to ask questions, you need to do research, you can't just trust and I think we are programmed to believe in just educators and in healthcare.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I remembered what it was that dropped back in when you described those colleagues on your team who would be different and that there would be friction points. That those colleagues on your team who would be different and that there would be friction points. It goes back to that idea of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. We are always looking for ease and actually learning doesn't feel like ease. Growth creativity doesn't feel like ease. It feels like something better than ease. But we need to teach our children and ourselves to enjoy the stretch. Um, which I think is you know and again, maybe that's where we talk about adhd as a superpower is that we love the stretch. Sometimes it breaks us we've all had the crashes but but when you can, when you can take a student with adhd and you can give them a sense of enthusiasm, passion and goal and purpose, then they light up. I heard you mention, with Alexandra, the gorgeous book All Dogs have ADHD.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it.
Speaker 2:I do it with my students all the time because it's so neutral, yeah.
Speaker 1:And relatable. Well, I mean, and it's finding that passion. And then they start to cook with gas. Do you know what I mean? Then they really start to. I always say to my daughter I say you know what, alexandra, all of the lessons mommy's learned in life have been painful. The things where I really grow as a person are not easy. It's the hard times, it's the stuff that really you know that the tire is burning, type of moments where you really grow and then. And then you get to another place where it's smooth sailing for a while and then something else comes and it's how you bounce and how you deal with those things. That are the best parts of life really. You might not see it initially, but seven years down the road from it and you look back, you're like gosh. I'm really happy that happened.
Speaker 2:Like when you're reading a book. You know, know, like the moments where the story just comes together and the plot is just building and the character's struggling, those are the when you look back on a book, those are the moments you remember and it's nice to think about your life like that and about your young people like that. That. You know, it doesn't have to be easy. The easy bits don't even register most of the time, um, partly because because you know, we forget to count our blessings, but also because there's nothing wrong with struggle. There's nothing wrong with struggle if it's purposeful.
Speaker 1:And nobody goes through life without struggles. Because sometimes my daughter would say well, you know they do so well at school. They're on, you know, getting all the awards, getting you know everything right. And I said but you know, that little girl can't sleep, that little girl has a problem with food, that little girl has you know, no one goes through life, it's just that they're different. You know everyone has their problems. We might not see what their struggles are, but they are there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we know it's in social media.
Speaker 1:I don't let her have social media, so that's a blessing you can let me have social media.
Speaker 2:I would love to remove it from my teenagers because I don't feel like I speak to them. I feel like I speak to their algorithm.
Speaker 1:So for me, and actually you know working and working in a nursery at the moment and not being able to touch my phone all day long. It's just the best thing for my brain. Yeah, yeah, that digital uh detox. I had to actually put my daughter's ipad in to get a new battery, uh, and she literally had a complete meltdown outside of waitress because she didn't know how she would survive until Wednesday without it. How did she do? Well, it's not over yet. She's doing fine. She listened to a podcast in the morning. She, after the initial, she went and sat in the car, had a cry, breathe with the dogs. I went and shopped in Waitrose, gave her some space and then she's like. You know, I could do this in the morning. I could do that in the morning because for some reason, our TVs don't turn on until 6am. I don't know why. Like I haven't programmed them, I don't know they just they don't work. And she wakes up quite early, at like five. So she was really worried about that one hour, but she's, she's navigated it.
Speaker 2:Kids are constantly with the. I'm bored and our generation didn't speak about boards like this generation. They speak about board Like it's a problem that needs to be solved, and usually it's mommy's problem and she needs to solve it. My husband is so good at this. He turns the devices off and they you know all the drama, all the screaming and crying. Then they're on board and he waits and they always come up with something to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, you know like it is amazing and it's, and they enjoy it probably as well, you know, yeah, well, anyway, we digress a bit. We've talked about tutoring, we've talked about you in education, but what kind of? So you kind of straddle both. Now, is that how it works? So you're, you're, because you, because you like to do so many things.
Speaker 2:I do. I'm 26 years old and I want to have purpose. I do. I'm not keeping young people alive anymore and I need, I need, I need the stretch. It's really exciting. So for the last five years I've been running Qualified Tutor, which is a professional development organization for tutors, and that was born from my first need to employ a tutor for my eldest when he was in year seven and he was failing and it wasn't his fault.
Speaker 2:The teacher was a disaster. And again, it was only because of my background in education that I understood that it was not my son's fault. So I started looking online for a tutor and I discovered it is too easy to find a tutor online. There are so many tutors out there with no qualifications who can just, you know, just sign up themselves as a tutor, and people put their children in front of them and I just thought that's not okay, and I mean they're done, that I know.
Speaker 1:And it can be more destructive, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:And there's so much sitting underneath that you know the lack of confidence, the lack of clarity around tutoring because it's unregulated, because it's always been hidden in the private sector. But now, with online, we desperately need regulation and tutoring. So qualified tutor provides training and certification and community and events. And we've now got a postgrad that we've launched with the University of Worcester, which is just epic because now a parent can really ask a tutor are you qualified to teach my child this subject at this level, with these needs? It's a really nuanced question. So I'm launching the new podcast, um, the parents guide to tutoring, and I'm doing that because parents don't know what to expect from a tutor.
Speaker 2:And I have worked with good tutors and I have worked with four tutors, five children all going through failing secondary schools. I have had the need for many tutors in the past few years. I have spent an eye-wanting amount of money on tutors and I'm glad to tell you that most of them have been fantastic. And you know my GCSE daughter, who did brilliantly, did particularly brilliantly in the subject that she had a tutor for. So it definitely works. But the process has to feel supportive for the parents because you know that lovely phrase, it takes a village. So you said before we started that you can't tutor Alexandra, and I say no, you can't tutor Alexandra. You can parent Alexandra, which sometimes involves supervising her homework, but the role of a tutor is specifically somebody who isn't emotionally invested.
Speaker 1:That's. That's that was the problem for me. I mean, that's what you know, covid like it was a disaster because I so badly wanted her to get it and she felt such pressure from me. It was just, you know, and we both have trigger meltdowns. From me, it was just you know, and we both have trigger meltdowns. You know, it was just a a disaster, even, you know, when she was little and she had to have physical therapy for her cerebral palsy. Even then they said don't, don't do the exercises with her, get your nanny to do the exercises with her, because you're too emotionally invested, you want so much for that improvement for you know, and it just ruins the dynamics between the two of you. You have too much on it and I'm glad that it's not just me, because I have some you know, mothers that I know in my circle who are really good at it, but they are.
Speaker 2:I'm glad to know now that they're the anomaly, not the norm and I'd love to speak to them because that is really, really impressive I am. I learned this lesson from a mom that I was raising my kids with when they were you know we were all babies in the baby zone, you know and her daughter refused to eat solids and she was making beautiful homemade baby food every day and the daughter was rejecting it and throwing it against the wall. And somebody said to her just open a a jar, because it hurts so much less. Yeah, so powerful because, because then the child is not offending the mother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you see the two of them, you know, growing up together and that relationship developing, with power being the control and the power and the food being the power struggle between them, and you never want that to happen, certainly at such a young age. So I think that was a great piece of advice that I followed through into academics and everything else. If I could farm out shoe shopping, I would do that too.
Speaker 1:I actually buy Alexander's shoes in Ireland, but that's another story, because it's the only shoe shop Cause the big ones. You know that they just I can't even see straight. You know what I mean Like, and I'm not the only person that comes to the shoe shop. There's another person from America that visits and buys her shoes. So you've created a space where tutors can get the accreditation they need, can get the support they can need and can get the community that they need to be able to flourish and to learn from each other, which is fantastic. That's right, and you've written a book as well about it, haven't you?
Speaker 2:I've written Love Tutoring, be the Tutor your Student Needs, which is something that I'm so immensely proud of needs, which is something that I'm so immensely proud of, and the tutors really say that it resonates with them and it gives them a sense of purpose and progression. And you know I can take on tutoring as a plan, A choice, rather than an ad hoc. I've got some hours or I'm housebound or you know all of the things that tutors tend to fall into tutoring. But really the child doesn't need you to fall in to tutoring. The child needs you to be really focused and really committed to making sure that they get the best possible experience. And that takes a lot of personal development because the proximity in tutoring is so close and it's really all about relationship. You know the children that I work with and this is interesting I tutor many of my closest friends' children and you'd never know it.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't know it outside my office and you wouldn't know it inside my office. The two things are totally different. It's the first thing that I say to them. You can trust me to not be a tutor out there and to not be your mom's friend in here, and I made the mistake once and I was. I was so upset afterwards that I broke that that boundary, because the children really need to feel that you're there for them, that you get them, that it's not about their mom or anyone else, it's just. It's just you understanding where they're up to, going there and guiding them forwards.
Speaker 1:And is part of your role as a tutor, also to I don't want to say coach, but maybe that is the right word for it the parent, and so do you meet with them separately because of those expectations we talked about, because of pressure, because of maybe opening their eyes to what's needed for that child could be completely different from what they think is needed yeah, I don't think they tend to want long meetings with me.
Speaker 2:What I do is I give them a voice note at the end, which works much better for me than typing anything up. I do them a voice note immediately after the session and I tell them everything we did and why. So it's almost like a mini teacher training for the parents so they understand where I'm coming from, what I'm seeing and what I'm doing to support. They don't have to ask the child, because very often the child doesn't even know they're being tutored. You know, they just think they're going to Julia for an hour. But for the parents it's sort of managing up. I think is the phrase where, by modeling and sort of illustrating what the approach is, the parent sort of tends to understand it.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I find is that when you get parents on the subject of their children as learners, they actually they become really insightful in a way that we don't usually. You know, when we talk about our kids it's very sort of flippant or it's, you know, the things that they did that annoyed us or the things that they did that make us laugh. But but actually seeing a person as a learner and is a very specific discipline that that does tend to develop with the parents. So I don't think I coach them, I think overstating it and and really I I do approach the parent as a client and I think that they deserve that. They deserve that respect and I certainly don't expect them to cancel on me last minute or anything else. You know, there's a real sense of professionalism, along with the warmth, but I do probably over communicate and I do that intentionally because I've worked with tutors with my own kids who haven't communicated enough and I found that so disappointing because they can they just don't Interesting.
Speaker 1:Very interesting, and do you? I mean, there's so many applications for tutoring as well. There's kids that are in school who need tutoring. There are kids that can't go to school who need tutoring. There are kids on that journey of rehabilitation that you talked about. Can you unpack that a little bit?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, I can. Did you know? According to the Sutton Trust, which is one of the charities that focuses on research and evidence for supporting disadvantaged learners in the classroom? So they've been tracking tutoring since 2012, and it's increased every year. The use of tutoring Now we're at one in four children and one in three in London who have worked with a tutor, so 25% of our children have worked with a tutor and it's completely an unregulated profession.
Speaker 1:It's unregulated.
Speaker 2:I know it sits in our blind spot. The Sutton Trust described it as shadow schooling. School can't exist in the shadows. A tutor certainly should not be left in the shadows. I don't talk about this, but there are lots of horrible stories about tutors and proximity to children.
Speaker 2:So the first thing, of course, that we do is is DBS check. So making sure that they have a clean police police record is the best we can do. What we actually do in qualified tutor is anybody who's certified. We check their DBS daily. Does that change really on a daily basis? Well, if something came up yesterday, then we would need to know today which is to stay. So you know, we have tutors from all over the world on our directory. In order to make sure that we are only recommending safe people, we need to make sure that they are still safe today. So a police check is only as good as the day it was done, and so we do it every day. We also issue credentials digital credentials, so that a parent can know that this is not a knockoff PDF. This is a robust on the blockchain credential that certifies that this person is safe, and if they weren't safe, you would see a great big red cross. You know through it, so I've forgotten the question. Oh, you said the context. Ok, so, like this, one of the key things that's happened in tutoring in the last few years was the National Tutoring Program.
Speaker 2:So, in response to COVID, the government put I think it was a billion pounds into getting tutors into schools to support children and they were giving I think it was a 15 hour block to children in maths, english and science initially to help them to close the gap that was caused by school closures, and the evidence behind that is immense. We know that tutoring tends to create five months progress, whereas most other interventions whether it's art interventions or staying back a year or behavior management or a teaching assistant nothing comes close to tutoring one-to-one or small groups in terms of the quality of intervention. And so much so that the other things that work really well, which are feedback, metacognition, which is the work I do, teaching children to think about their learning, those are all things that we do in tutoring constantly. Well done. Do you want to try that again? How did that work for you? How did you solve that question? Those are the things that I have the luxury of talking to my student about throughout the session Teacher just doesn't have that, they don't have the time, they don't have the reach.
Speaker 2:And so it's this innocent mistake where tutoring in school, tutoring out of school, so that's supplementing or that lovely word, rehabilitating. And then the home ed, which is a growing area for tutors, where actually tutors begin to have permission to think outside the curriculum and what would really pique the interest of this home ed family and and what's going to bring that student back towards being able to get a GCSE, where they're really quite far from it right now. And so they really get to be very, very creative with their approach. Tends to be useful to think about packages in tutoring. So you know, a one-off session is never a good idea, because you're putting your child in front of somebody, you're creating all that pressure for building relationship.
Speaker 2:Once you've had the chance to build a relationship, it tends to be useful to stick around for at least that 15 week block to really see what can be done. You know what the low hanging fruit are, the quick wins, what things you can do to build confidence, and then over time, it's when the learner starts creating a connection between the effort and the attainment. Yeah, when I put the effort in, I do better Can't do that in the classroom. They're not reaching me in the classroom. But if the tutor can get close enough and help the child to actually realize that when they put the work in they can be successful, you build an independent learner. A tutor is always planning to make themselves redundant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's excellent, yeah, and you're teaching a love of learning and you're teaching also the skills to get success to that place of knowledge and to get to that place of success with that knowledge.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right and what's lovely about it is I've got stacks of books and games in my office because I can do that with any resource. Yeah, as long as there's the stretch in there. You know, if a child is into motorbikes or a child is into pets, then we can use that vehicle to work on the skills that are then transferable back to the classroom, fantastic, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it almost seems to me like the way that you've described the different ways that you can tutor that as a tutor, different areas especially, almost like subspecialties. It sounds like to me you know what I mean, oh, I want to go into this, or maybe, as you get more experience and you go into that. So it sounds like there is a whole career kind of path within that as well.
Speaker 2:There can be.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think that's really lovely that you've picked up on that, because, again, there's traditionally been this sort of plan B approach it's a retired teacher or it's somebody who or maternity leaves, but but really, what can happen now? Because of online, I can tutor. I have one student who's in Singapore, so I work with her very early in the morning. I have one student who's in Singapore, so I work with her very early in the morning and you can work in groups which can work really, really well, because then you leverage the social dynamic as well, which can be fantastic, and build social skills. But you've also got that opportunity to tutor around the clock in different time zones, take on groups, take on students who are beyond your local area, and that's why you're able to build a real career in it.
Speaker 2:But that point that you say about the specialisms, I think becomes really interesting because tutors have to be really proactive about seeking out those specialisms, because there's not a specific box that we sit in. And that's actually what's lovely about tutoring is how flexible it is for the tutor as well as the student. So, um, I can be a specialist in english and adhd and gcse and scottish papers. Well, it's not called gcse in scotland, but you know what I mean, um, and, and that will be my specific intersection for those students and and really I don't need to compete with the rest of the tutoring world because there will be enough people in exactly that pot that will work for me. And so helping parents and this is what I'm really passionate about at the moment helping parents to choose tutors wisely and then make the most of their investment. You know, tutoring costs upwards of £35 every week. It hurts.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:And it's worth every penny because you're unlocking opportunities and building confidence. And that is not only it's priceless, but also I can't do it myself.
Speaker 1:And you know, I mean there's an argument to say with your previous discussion of when they brought tutors into mainstream schools. Like, my daughter goes to a specialist independent school and they have up to year eight. Through year eight they have a 30 minutes tutoring session with a one-to-one support every morning that all the kids go to, and I hadn't really thought of that as tutoring, but that is tutoring, you know. And then in year nine they transitioned to groups and they have group with one leader, like two or three in a group, and it's so phenomenal because the child can grow, they're not being pulled out of the classroom because they have needs. Everyone does it.
Speaker 1:You know why not do that more? Well, of course it's budget I'm answering my own question here but you know, it would make so much sense because when you have those 30 kids in the classroom and you have that teacher, that just can't. No teacher, no one's superhuman enough to be able to do that. It's maybe a really good solution that isn't too onerous for a school to implement, but maybe I'm no, no, well, there's a Illusional.
Speaker 2:Firstly, we can't afford not to meet our children's needs. You know, cost in unemployment, the cost in mental health, the, the cost in unemployment, the cost in mental health, the cost in you know the medical implications of not meeting a child's needs are immense and quantifiable. So so definitely, tutoring for every child is cheaper than that and I lost the other one, gone again.
Speaker 1:It's gone again. But you know, tutoring is it possible, I guess is my question as an educator in schools. Yes, I know that it's. The problem with with governments is and is that they don't look, and in health care too, they don't look at the long term costs. They look at the here and the now. You know, yeah, so they put it. They put a billion, didn't they? Into a covet.
Speaker 2:that's a lot of money, a lot of money it's a lot of money and the take-up wasn't great, because the rollout wasn't great and because of course it wasn't, and because the clash between public and private in that, in that moment, was an absolute disaster. Tutoring stepped up as an industry really really well, which was fascinating to watch, um, and created a strong need for the training that I created, because, of course, the government had to make sure that they were investing in tutors of a certain quality and there was a strong sense of patchy quality. But let me go back to the idea that I had forgotten, have now remembered, and it's to do with what you said about government, but, and it's to do with what you said about government, so I think that AI has a place here. Um, now it's interesting, right, because I've just said that tutoring is really about relationship and, um, my 10 year old did say I love chat GPT she's so nice recently, which is awkward.
Speaker 1:I do too.
Speaker 2:I agree with her mine's a bit annoying at the. I'm waiting for her to recalibrate. So we do not want our children being raised by robots. We don't. We certainly don't want them raised by algorithms that are self-reinforcing. That's not what we want. We want them raised by humans, and yet there is something about how personalizable ai is. That is just crucial in what we're trying to achieve with changes in education.
Speaker 2:Since one size fits none yeah, absolutely breaking generation after generation we must use the technology to personalize learning and then the adult becomes what I do the academic mentor. I don't need to deliver the science curriculum Somebody a technology can do that much better than me but I can be the person that cheers the child on, that encourages them, that reminds them to take a break, that understands them and sees them and guides their learning, and that becomes a really interesting model. In which case, what is school for? It's partly for childcare, but it's also for the social skills, and actually currently in the classroom, we don't build social skills, we build competition 30 children competing for the attention of one adult is not social skills, it's competition. What we rather want to do is make sure that you've got the lead learner, make sure that you've got the technology supporting the curriculum, and then everything that's going on in the classroom becomes group work, and that's much more like what happens in the working world.
Speaker 1:Oh, if we could wave a magic wand and make that happen, wouldn't that be beautiful?
Speaker 2:And I've seen places like it, and I'm sure that the unicorn right where you're sitting, Alexandra, is working on a similar model, Because anybody who's looking to what's coming next in education, that's what they're seeing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it is technology with humanity, I think, is where the magic and the beauty happens. You know what I mean. And it frees you up. I just got my dad, who's 83. This is this is how he would use chat GPT. Olivia, can you ask chat GPT this for me, because I'm his unpaid secretary for all things in life? Yeah, so he did, and I did it for him, and so we went on holiday and I said to him you know what? Let me teach you how to use chat GPT. So he sits down and I teach him how to use it. And then he was home and he calls me up in such excitement. He's like Olivia, this is unbelievable. He's like you know, I asked it this and then it suggested this, and then I did so much in it I now have to pay for my subscription. And he's like wow.
Speaker 2:My mother-in-law gets it to tell her what to cook for dinner. She tells her the ingredients of her fridge. How clever. And meanwhile, my 10-year-old, who I keep referring to she's obsessed with a gorgeous series called Keeper of Velocities, but there's only 10 books, so she asks it to write some more stories for her.
Speaker 1:And did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, wow. That's phenomenal, I know you and I are still just using it for emails, I know.
Speaker 1:I know I use it for relationship advice. I use it for everything. You know I'm a sad, sad woman. You don't know Everything. You know I'm a sad, sad woman. You don't know it gives great advice, very great advice. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So, and I follow it and it's it's, you know, it's, it's, you know it doesn't let me down. So I, I, I think there's, and also, you know, being an entrepreneur, it's, it can be your workforce in many, in many ways. You know it can, it can really take out some of the onerous tasks that me, as a dyslexic and probably with undiagnosed ADHD, have struggled to do. It can really help organize and help with that. So I think it's brilliant. But anyway, we've gotten completely off topic now. So, and we've been chatting for quite a while now it's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast, julia. I have to say I usually end my podcast with three top tips that you would give to parents about tutoring or from your lived in experience of raising five neuro spicy kids. Can I ask you what your three top tips would be?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Okay. Firstly, you can't do it all, yeah, so you must find other people to supplement your role, because your child needs to engage with more than one wise adult, and your child needs to learn that the adults around them will help them. So finding a tutor is initially just that, understanding that it's not on you, it's not on them. You can reach out for help and that there are great people who can help you in affordable ways. Reach out for help and that there are great people who can help you in affordable ways. So that's number one Do ask for help, whether it's with social and emotional support, whether it's with academic support and un-teasing.
Speaker 2:What's going on with the child is not something that you can do when you're so close up. You need somebody outside of that role. Secondly, only work with people you like. That's a good one, because if a tutor's not gonna bother to build relationship with you, they're not gonna bother to build relationship with your child.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't take long to be nice, um, but certainly that that interest in in you, your family, what your needs are, what your goals are for your child, a continued interest, not just a, not just a sales call yeah, that's what we're really looking for. We're looking for that relationship that spills into understanding that the power of tutoring really can lift a whole family, because the stress that the child is carrying is then alleviated. So those are two things. And the third thing, and you'll forgive me for saying this please go and have a look at the Qualified Tutor Directory, because it's a free resource for pre-vetted tutors. So if you don't know where to find a tutor, that is a safe place to start. The Parents' Guide to Tutoring will give tons more information and texture around what those relationships can look like. But I think those first three things of do ask for help, only work with people you like and make sure that your tutors are pre-vetted is a great place to start.
Speaker 1:And then we'll have your podcast, too, coming up, so then they can listen to that as well. So that's going to be. You know, I'm going to have to put so many things in the show notes. I mean your book, your qualified tutors. So there's going to be a wealth of information for parents so that they don't because yeah, again, you just trust and you actually need to think it through. And that's great to have all those resources available so that you know that you're getting the best person.
Speaker 1:But even if this is a great qualified person, it might not be the right match for you. So, and to be able to, I think that's a really important key message, because sometimes it's really hard and I know I've done this with therapists, with Alexandra too you just don't like them, right, and then to get rid of them, it really goes against everything you know to say this is just isn't working. It's a really hard conversation to have, but it's important. If you don't, it's okay not to gel and it's okay to say you know what? This isn't working for me or my child. We need to move to someone else, and I think that's really super important for people to realize.
Speaker 2:Can I have one more as a mom?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Go with perfectly imperfect yeah. Yeah, you don't have to be perfect. Nothing has to be perfect. You don't have to show up to please that psychiatrist. Don't like the psychiatrist. Sack the psychiatrist. Never sack your daughter.
Speaker 1:You know my daughter, my daughter I was doing, I was doing a handout actually for this week's podcast on emotional regulation and my daughter really loves the zones of regulation and she was helping me with it and she really loves bread.
Speaker 2:I haven't heard her talk about any of the others yet that's her favorite one.
Speaker 1:I mean she goes mommy, you've got to put it's okay to not be okay, but you can't stay not okay for too long. And I said that is beautiful.
Speaker 2:So wise, so wise yeah our little people are pretty awesome. They are, we're really privileged.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, Julia, for coming on the Send Parenting podcast and I look forward to listening to your podcast in the future.
Speaker 2:You're going to come on.
Speaker 1:Excellent, I'd love to.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your time and attention. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me and Julia on today's episode. Her work through Qualified Tutors is a reminder that our children's learning journeys are not just about grades alone but rebuilding trust, confidence and hope, and getting the right tutor is so important for that need encouragement or help finding a tutor. You can find more resources, including the 30-Day Better Sleep Starter Guide, at SENDParentingcom. Backslash sleep or through the link in the show notes. Until next time, take care and remember you're not alone on this journey. You.