Since Summer School launched in July, its pupils have watched over 81 days worth of videos and completed tens of thousands of quizzes, generating reams of data which schools are no doubt eager to use as they reopen their doors for a new academic year. From September, Summer School’s evolution into TUTOR will bring with it a host of new features and advanced functionality which will support teachers even more, both in their interventions, and in their day-to-day teaching and learning.
Whether your pupils have been active on Summer School, or you are just getting started in September, we want you to get the most out of TUTOR as part of your teaching and learning programme this academic year. Read on for six ways to use TUTOR in the classroom:
TUTOR’s most impressive feature is, arguably, its ability to assess a pupil, set a customised starting point for their learning, and then guide them through our entire maths curriculum. If you’re looking for a powerful, personalised intervention tool, this is it. You might decide to use TUTOR in place of group intervention — simply provide pupils with a laptop and a supervising member of staff, and let them work at their own pace. Alternatively, have pupils log on at home and use TUTOR as the backbone of their home learning. From the teacher side, you’ll be able to view their progress through the curriculum as well as their quiz scores, making it easy to track both usage and assessment outcomes.
If your pupils enjoyed the discrete courses available through Summer School, then we have good news: these are staying put on TUTOR. Our Stage courses are mapped against the Complete Maths curriculum, with each stage roughly corresponding to the equivalent academic year — so in Stage 6 you will find content you might expect to see in confident classrooms in Year 6 (England and Wales), Year 7 (Northern Ireland), or Primary 7 (Scotland). For pupils who have begun the year below the expected standard for their age, these courses can offer a great catch-up resource for them to work through at home.
Perhaps you have an assessment approaching and need pupils to revise a specific set of topics. You might have a class or a group of pupils who’ve missed a particular unit and you need them to catch up so the rest of the cohort can move on. These are just two of the reasons why we’ve created the option to build your own bespoke course using the content already available on TUTOR. Pick and choose the appropriate Ideas for your pupils, and we’ll supply the Readiness assessment, videos, and Goal quizzes.
When a pupil discovers a topic in maths that ignites a spark in their imagination, we want to nurture that spark into a flame. Topic courses include all the content we have available on a particular slice of mathematics, from Transformations to Trigonometry. If one of your pupils shows particular aptitude or interest in a topic, then these courses are perfect for stretching them beyond what they might cover in the classroom and letting them explore in more depth. For older pupils struggling to grasp a complex idea, returning to the beginning of the relevant maths could help tackle misconceptions or cement key knowledge that may otherwise be missed.
For pupils who struggle to plan revision, or who lack motivation, setting a target number of Goals to complete could be the answer. Each goal follows the same structure and offers a bite-size, straightforward way to revise, especially during the week. It’s easy for both teachers and parents or carers to track progress through a Goal, too, making a Goal target — such as completing one Goal per night during the week and two each weekend — a manageable and measurable way for those at home to support their children. The Awards on TUTOR add an extra layer of motivation, with pupils rewarded not just for high scores on quizzes, but also for the number of log-ins and the number of Goals completed.
If you’re following a Mastery curriculum then you already know the vital importance of assessing pupils’ existing knowledge before attempting to teach a new topic. In reality, when teaching a class of 30 pupils, each of whom comes to the lesson with their own strengths and weaknesses, it can be hard to assess quickly who is ready to go and who needs extra support. The Readiness step on TUTOR can do this for you, by sharing with pupils the prior knowledge they will need to have in place, assessing them against it, and then recommending which topics need ‘Fixing’ along with supporting resources. Asking pupils to complete Readiness quizzes at home, before the lesson, means you’ll begin teaching armed with the knowledge of which pupils need further support and which are ready to stretch.
TUTOR is designed to be most powerful when used in conjunction with CLASSROOM, and in the coming months you’ll see more and more integration between the two platforms as they begin to share data. If you are an existing CLASSROOM user, we want to hear from you: what information from TUTOR would you like to see on CLASSROOM? If you haven’t yet signed up to CLASSROOM, get in touch by emailing