5 Essential Lesson Planning Tips for New Tutors
Author: Bella Thorburn
Bella has recently begun her gap year Yipiyap, and currently tutors Maths at a local school!
As a tutor or member of support staff working alongside teachers at school, staying organised and communicating clearly is crucial for delivering impactful learning experiences to your students.
In this blog post, one of our newest tutors, Bella, shares her top lesson planning advice from the first six weeks at her placement school. Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your approach, these five essential tips will guide you in maximising your impact with students, while collaborating closely with staff.
Coordinate with subject teachers
The most important part of lesson planning, in my opinion, is coordinating with subject teachers. I’m assuming you’re reading this as you may be new to teaching, and don’t have a wealth of experience with predicting student needs just yet - and that’s perfectly okay! Putting the time into communicating with teachers, even if that’s just going to see them after a session for two minutes, can be really effective. You can discuss things like: the topics you covered, how the student(s) did, any areas of weaknesses etc.
This is not only helpful for you as a tutor, as it means in the future you’ll feel more comfortable in the future grabbing the teacher’s attention to have a chat, or to ask a question you need them to answer, but for the student too, as their teacher can keep track of their progress. This means they can identify areas where they still need development, which the student can begin to address independently before your next session
2. Personalise the learning experience
Once you’re in a session with a student, ask them directly what they need from you. This is particularly important if you’re tutoring GCSE level students, as any issues they bring up may well come up in an exam! Additionally, make sure to break up your content so it’s not all worksheets. Personalise it to the student - maybe they need breaks between tasks to stay focused, or they work best when tasks are gamified with instant feedback - so you could try quizzes or Kahoots!
Some students don’t mind the strictly academic “Copy this down”, “Answer this question”, “Fill out this worksheet, then this one’” approach. But, chances are, you may be paired with a student or group because the teacher has noticed they aren’t following along with that approach, and need it explained a different way. This is may be more difficult with small groups rather than one-on-one sessions, because you will need to balance everyone’s needs, but if you begin your sessions generally accommodating everyone, you will be able to tailor your lessons in the future once you get to know the students better!
3. Develop an organised approach
I know organisation isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but just as your own teachers kept nagging you about during sixth form or college, getting into the habit of it when you first begin, will save you so much time later. I use an accordion folder to stay organised, and what I like to do is keep each day of the week in a different section, as well as a section for ‘worksheets’, ‘games’ (like maths bingo cards), ‘topic recaps’, and some paper (lined, plain and with squares).
Without a folder, the same thing can be achieved by asking your school for the materials; you could get a few plastic wallets, and if you’re a maths tutor, one of those exercise books with squared paper inside!
4. Be flexible
By staying organised, you can also account for staying flexible. Having a folder like this means you can put any last-minute changes into action without access to a printer, and if magic happens and you finish the lesson content early, you can pull out some old worksheets to consolidate previous lessons!
You can also do some planning ahead of time and place it in the day of the week section, so that once that day rolls around, you have everything prepared and in one place. Even a notebook with bullet point, barebones notes on what topic you covered in each session or what areas of weaknesses the students need help with most will help out in the future.
5. Leverage classroom materials
In my placement, my tutoring goes alongside the teacher’s curriculum - so instead of asking about the current topic and coming up with everything myself, I get a copy of the main class’ PowerPoint and use this to help me plan. The PowerPoints include the minimum of what the entire class should know by the end of the lesson, as well as a selection of example questions. As a maths tutor, this is especially helpful, as making up questions on the fly can result in awkward fractional answers that look wrong, even if they’re right!
Once I have the PowerPoint, I go through each slide and see what I have to include in my own planning; I look for things like the descriptions of key terms, or slides with graphs that I can print off myself, to avoid having to draw each one myself.
All in all, previewing the classroom materials helps you to keep on topic and make bullet points of what you definitely need to cover. This also allows you to keep track of time; especially when there are delays in lessons that need to be corrected to move on.
How do I do this? I keep a label of class group, class period, and what tasks I’ll be including as well as an estimate of how long each should take. I would say that for each 45-50 minutes of content, allow 10 minutes for delays. You can always give extra work, but it’s much harder to come back to content you never finished off because you ran out of time!
Therefore, if the content you’re teaching aligns with the student’s lessons, I’d definitely recommend getting a copy of what teacher is using - it’ll help a bunch!
Good luck with your lesson planning!