Being a form tutor is an underrated role in a school.
‘The tutor is the glue that holds together the academic and the pastoral.’
I made that up this week because it articulates an intuition I always knew.
The challenge of being a tutor includes conundrums such as:
- How do I build a relationship with my tutees in such a short space of time in a day?
- What’s the point of all the information I get from Heads of Year/ PSHEE coordinators/ the Deputy Head/ the Head of Science etc. [delete as appropriate] when I can’t even get through it?
- Wouldn’t it be a better use of my time doing some lesson preparation?
- etc.
As a Year 11 tutor this year, I inherited a group that were cynical, undisciplined, and verging on disengaged (not every member…but that was very definitely the natural pull of the group).
I feel I’m beginning to turn this around with a few strategies (which I’ll outline below) that start from the fundamental idea of remembering my tutees are human beings.
When I got my previous role as Head of Sixth eight years ago, I was really excited because it felt like a natural progression of everything I had been doing.
I learned so much on the job it meant I didn’t attend any formal Head of Sixth Form training until I’d been in the role for over two years.
The one thing that stays with me from that whole day was the importance of the tutor. One of the trainers said tutors need to ‘take an interest, not the register’.
Heads of Year lead tutors in the way Heads of Department lead subject teachers.
This might seem obvious, but its bears repeating.
One crucial part of leadership is providing certainty for the people we’re leading. And I think tutors do the same thing for their tutees.
To illustrate ‘taking an interest, not the register’ here are a list of ideas to play with…read, consider, and implement…
1_Monday Morning Email
When I was Head of Sixth one simple thing I did was send an email every Monday morning by 8am with everything that was happening in the coming week including (amongst other things)
- The ‘theme’ of the week (that matched the tutor time resources and my assembly)
- Resources for Tutor Time
- Upcoming events/ dates
For a while I included a deliberate spelling mistake – with the first tutor to let me know getting a chocolate bar – all to encourage them to read it…
2_Set a routine
Obvious but powerful. My tutees are getting used to what we do each day of the week (for example on a Thursday it’s PSHEE time)
3_Share the information they need
Through the week I tend to collect various bits from other teachers (from the Deputy Head, to the Head of Science) that’s relevant to Y11. I share it all with my group…this week it was the Numeracy Challenge, Word of the Week, and the fact that ‘Lunchtime Live’ has performances on a Friday…
4_Collect the shared information in one place…
So much of what I pick up comes in dribs and drabs through the week. So, I have a single PowerPoint presentation that into which I cut/ paste any relevant information. In 5m every day I can pass on anything new…
5_Set Expectations
I liken this to Tom Bennett’s tenth principle in his book ‘Running the Room’ – “My room, my rules”. At the beginning of the year, I drafted a one-pager of my expectations for my tutees. I matched it to our school’s values. We read it together. I then refer to it as required.
Incidentally, I did the same thing in all my teaching classes.
6_Listen
Probably one of the most profound things we can do for our tutees. And it’s not waiting-for-my-turn-to-respond it’s really getting into another person’s world. It means I actually have to shut up. And. Not. Interrupt. No mean feat as a teacher.
7_Collect Data (and use it)
It’s not knowledge that’s power. It’s data. Collecting merits/ issues (as they are in my school) helps create a picture for me about the individuals in my group.
Knowing my tutees’ minimum expected grades (or targets…or whatever terminology your school uses) and their current grades – or how to get this information – means I can have pointed conversations with specific people…
[This topic is also a whole blog post…or even series…look out for it.]
8_Set goals
I set my own ‘SMART’ targets, shared them with my tutees, and then asked them to set their own too. I kept a copy and then refer to it frequently. It was disarming for them at first because they weren’t used to a teacher being interested in them to this level…
9_Have one-to-ones (if possible)
I’m lucky enough to have a co-tutor for one day a week…which means I can have a 5m meeting with my tutees and refer to any data (see no 7) and discuss their goals (see no 8). Perhaps no clearer demonstration of taking an interest, not the register.
After writing this list…I realise that only no 1 explicitly relates to being a middle leader. The rest are more obviously applied to a tutor group.
So – consider how nos 2-9 can be reapplied in the context of middle leadership…because they really could.
As evidence of the effectiveness of these strategies, here’s what one of my tutees said to me yesterday:
You’re the only teacher I can actually talk to.
Y11 tutee
James D'Souza 