Claire Howarth could see change coming and moved quickly to prepare her local tutoring service for a locked-down world.
Mindfull Tutoring in Hamilton offers after-school tutoring for students from year one to year 13, and the Covid-19 level 4 lockdown could have had a huge impact.
But Howarth quickly flexed, adopting online technology for the lessons, which have continued without a break.
One tutor was already using Zoom to teach via video linkup because three of the organisation’s 170 students could not attend lessons in person.
It was a case of acquiring six more Zoom accounts and upskilling all 10 tutors to use the technology.
On March 22, the Sunday before the lockdown announcement, that saw them spend a session getting up to speed.
“We had a full staff meeting with PD to start to skill all the staff that afternoon and tell them what the plan was, moving forward. The rule was that we’re only as strong as our weakest person, and nobody’s going home until the weakest person knows how to do this.”
That took two hours, and meant the online teaching could start immediately, ahead of the lockdown. As well as Zoom, they use Google Docs to share materials with the students.
For the first three weeks, either Howarth or her manager, Kimmy Crampton, sat in on all of the lessons so they could troubleshoot. “If someone was stuck, we could phone them up and help them out.”
That saw them working 60 hour weeks as they also juggled the care of their own children, in Howarth’s case, four children under six.
They kept the teaching hours the same as normal and retained the same teacher-student pairings as much as possible. “Obviously for kids it’s really important to keep routine and familiarity,” Howarth says.
It hasn’t always been possible to stick to routine, however – like the two students, one year 9 and one year 11, who moved homes and left their books behind. Howarth had to scan and send them the materials for the lesson, which was delayed. “So we did the lesson on the Friday night at 6.30. They were like, ‘yeah, we’re not going anywhere’. You’d never normally get senior girls keen for a maths lesson on a Friday night!”
She says the teachers are reporting that it’s getting easier as they go on, particularly after the initial setting up of resources.
“Luckily, they had the understanding that there was going to be a bottleneck at the beginning, and that’s just the unfortunate reality. But they were all quite happy to dig in and do it because they could see it was for the long haul, not just a week or two.”
Howarth says parents have also been supportive, with a negligible drop-off in numbers, mainly as families’ employment situations have changed.
“It’s been a big learning curve for families as well. Hopefully, when all the families start back at school, they should all be a step ahead of their classmates because they’ve just had three weeks of lessons.”
The business was already growing and had upsized its premises to meet demand. The online option may provide further growth potential, though Howarth says some learning is better face to face – youngsters learning maths, for example. As a mother, she is also keen to keep some balance in her own life.
“It’s gone really well and it’s only gone well because the staff and the parents have supported it. So I’m certainly very proud of the staff and I’m very appreciative of the parents for getting on board. Because that’s what makes or breaks it for any business.”
