Learning support

Bespoke academic support

When the learner knows more than their schoolwork shows.

The problem may have very little to do with understanding the subject. The harder part can be everything required to turn understanding into finished work: starting, organising, remembering, planning, managing time and getting an idea out of the head and onto the page.

Where this fits

A bespoke academic support guide is usually built once we understand enough about the learner to know why the current approach is breaking down. That learner picture may come through Report to Reality or other existing work. Then we build something around the academic demands the learner actually has.

This is different from tutoring

Tutoring can be exactly what a child needs when the problem is subject knowledge or when they need somebody to teach, explain or practise content. My work has a different focus. I am interested in the process around the task.

A learner may understand Macbeth perfectly well but have no idea how to turn six weeks of class material into something they can revise. They may know the science but lose marks because a command word changes what the question expects. Teaching more content will not necessarily solve those problems.

The hidden demands inside schoolwork

“Study chapter four.” “Prepare for the test.” “Write an essay.” Each sounds like one task. For a learner with executive-function, memory, output or processing difficulties, each may actually contain twenty decisions.

A useful support guide makes some of those hidden steps visible and builds a route through them.

What a guide can include

There is no standard pack. Depending on the learner, I may create strategies or tools around studying, revision, planning, written output, memory, task breakdown, organising subject material, interpreting instructions or managing longer pieces of work.

If the system requires a perfectly organised learner, unlimited time and an adult standing beside them at every step, it has missed the point.

The learner needs some ownership

I do not want to create another beautiful system that a parent has to manage forever. Where age and circumstances allow, the learner should understand why a tool exists, have some say in how it works and gradually become able to use what helps without somebody constantly policing the process.

The Other Way In

Some of the same thinking also shapes The Other Way In, my collection of learning resources. For an individual learner, though, a bespoke guide goes further because it can be built around their particular profile, subjects and current academic demands.

Bespoke Academic Support Guides start from R2,400. The free initial consultation lets us establish what the learner needs before I propose the scope.

Talk to Nicola about this