Hayden McEvoy, the visionary founder of A Team Tuition, recently shared his deeply personal and inspiring story on The Shared Minds Podcast, offering listeners a unique glimpse into the origins and philosophy behind one of Australia’s leading tutoring services.

In a candid conversation with hosts Kirby and Liam, Hayden opened up about his experiences growing up with ADHD and the academic challenges he faced. He revealed how these early struggles became the crucible for developing the unique approach that now defines A Team Tuition: a powerful blend of elite athlete discipline, strategic thinking, and a profound focus on mindset.

“My own journey taught me that academic success isn’t just about intelligence; it’s about the right strategies, the right mindset, and truly understanding how you learn,” Hayden explained on the podcast. “I took what I learned from high-performance environments and applied it to education, building a system that could help students not just pass, but truly thrive.”

The episode delves into how Hayden transformed his own learning experience, ultimately laying the groundwork for A Team Tuition’s comprehensive model. This model helps students build confidence, achieve measurable results, and develop lifelong learning skills through personalised coaching, dedicated mentoring, and the structured framework of its 6-month Transformation Program.

The Shared Minds Podcast, known for its deep dives into conversations with leaders, experts, and individuals who have overcome significant challenges, provided the perfect platform for Hayden to share his powerful narrative. Co-hosts Liam and Kirby, who bring their own experiences with mental health and personal growth, expertly guided the discussion, highlighting the human element behind academic struggles and triumphs.

This episode is a must-listen for parents seeking effective strategies for their children, particularly those with unique learning needs, and for anyone interested in the intersection of mindset, personal resilience, and educational success.

Listen to Hayden McEvoy’s inspiring episode on The Shared Minds Podcast now 

About A Team Tuition: Founded by Hayden McEvoy, A Team Tuition is dedicated to transforming students’ academic lives through personalised, mindset-driven tutoring. By focusing on individual learning styles, strategic approaches, and confidence-building, A Team Tuition empowers students to achieve their academic goals and unlock their full potential.

The post A Team Tuition Founder Hayden McEvoy Shares Personal Journey on The Shared Minds Podcast appeared first on A Team Tuition.

Mastering motivation is key, especially in the last parts of the school year. As Term 4 approaches, students often become the most demotivated and complacent they’ll be all year.

Here’s why it’s important to snap them out of that slump and how you can help.

What is Motivation?

Before diving into why Term 4 motivation matters, let’s break down what motivation actually is.

Motivation is the spark that fuels our drive to push beyond expectations, the whisper that gets us out of bed on a cold morning, and the energy that propels us toward our goals.

Psychologists typically divide motivation into two types:

1. Extrinsic Motivation: Driven by external rewards like praise, prizes, or recognition.
2. Intrinsic Motivation: Driven by internal desires like personal growth, pride, or accomplishment.

While both play a role, the key question is: which one is more effective?

What Motivates Students?

Recent research suggests that too many external rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation, known as the over-justification effect. For example, showering a student with gifts for good grades may backfire if they already feel proud of their improvement.

External rewards still have value, though. They can encourage participation, help build new skills, and boost confidence through feedback. However, students thrive most when they feel personally connected to their work and proud of their progress—what psychologist Abraham Maslow calls self-actualisation.

What is Intrinsic Motivation?

Intrinsic motivation is when students feel driven by internal factors—things like purpose, autonomy, and a sense of achievement. Research by Kusurkar (2011) found six key ways to help students cultivate intrinsic motivation:

1. Engage in learning topics that interest them.
2. Pick subjects they enjoy.
3. Actively participate in class discussions, even when unsure of the answers.
4. Request structured guidance from teachers and parents.
5. Seek clear, constructive feedback for improvement.
6. Surround themselves with a strong emotional support network.

If one of these is missing, helping your child focus on it will build their internal drive and hunger to succeed without relying solely on external rewards.

How to Improve Your Child’s Term 4 Motivation

As Term 4 approaches, students often refer to it as “The Bludge Term”—a time to coast through. But finishing strong is crucial, and here are a few ways to keep your child motivated through these last few weeks:

1. Set Clear and Attainable Goals

Work with your child to set specific, achievable goals. Break large tasks into smaller milestones, such as completing a chapter of study each week or improving a specific skill. For example, if they’re struggling with maths, focus on mastering one type of equation at a time. This way, they can track progress and feel a sense of accomplishment along the way.

2. Celebrate Achievements

Recognise their successes, no matter how small. Did they nail a difficult assignment? Celebrate with a family dinner or a special treat. For instance, after a big exam, take them out for ice cream, or after completing a long study session, let them pick a fun activity for the weekend. Positive reinforcement keeps them motivated to continue.

3. Provide Support and Guidance

Find out what inspires your child and offer the right kind of support. Maybe your child is a visual learner and could benefit from colourful charts or diagrams. If they struggle to focus, try a study schedule with frequent, short breaks. You can also help them with strategies like time management or note-taking to overcome challenges and stay on track.

4. Encourage Reflection and Self-Assessment

Help your child reflect on their progress. Ask questions like, “What do you think went well in your last assignment?” or “What could you improve on?” Encourage them to think critically about their learning, fostering autonomy. This also gives them the chance to take pride in their achievements and identify areas they need to focus on for improvement.

Leverage the Power of Tutoring

Tutors can provide personalised guidance, one-on-one support, and tailored strategies to help keep your child motivated. By working closely with tutors, students gain extra support and encouragement, fostering a sense of accountability and confidence in their academic abilities.

If you feel like your child could use an extra boost, contact A Team Tuition and discover how our tutors can help.

The post How to Maintain Motivation for Your Child in Term 4 appeared first on A Team Tuition.

What Are Visual Techniques in English?

Visual techniques are the elements of an image, video, or artwork that help to create meaning. They are used by different artists and creators for many reasons, but we analyse them to help us discern and create meaning from text when writing English essays.

Essential English Visual Techniques 

Analysing visual techniques in your English essays is vital for success in your career as an English student. Many other things can help you get an A in English as well, but here we are focusing on breaking down different visual techniques. The different techniques are listed and expanded upon below. 

1. Composition

Composition is what an image is made up of. This includes things like where an object is placed, how it is framed, and the colour and lighting techniques used. Composition broadly refers to the image as a whole and what you see when you look at it.

Using this in an essay could look like this: The Mona Lisa is a picture of a woman’s torso taking up the majority of the piece in front of a nature background.

2. Colour

Colour is the colours used in an image and what they can symbolise. Oftentimes different colours will evoke different emotions in the audience. For example, purple is a colour of royalty, wealth and luxury, whereas red represents passion, lust and anger. 

Colour also includes the tone of the colour, if it is bright and vivid or dull and de-saturated. Using this in an essay could look like: The deep, saturated colours used in the Mona Lisa evoke feelings of calm and peace. 

If you are a visual learner, you may already be using this without even knowing it! This could be through colour-coding different subjects or thoughts, or working better with diagrams and colours built into your notes.

3. Symbolism

Symbolism is the use of one object or image to represent another more complex concept. Things like religious symbolism and animal symbolism are often used.

Using this in an essay could look like: Frida Kahlo’s use of the hummingbird in Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird symbolises hope in her culture.

4. Texture

Texture refers to the literal texture of an object. Is it rough or smooth? Does it have different ridges and feelings across the object? 

Using this in an essay could look like: Van Gogh’s Starry Night has a heavy texture throughout the image.

5. Perspective

Perspective is how a three-dimensional object is placed on a two-dimensional surface. In artworks, perspective also changes the angle at which you, as the viewer, perceive the object. 

Using this in an essay could look like: In Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, the viewer is placed in a front-on perspective, looking directly at Kahlo. 

6. Lighting

Lighting is how an image is lit or not lit. This can include natural lighting like sunlight or open windows, man-made lighting like lamps or torches, or feature lighting like coloured lights or spotlights. Lighting has a major impact on the mood and atmosphere of a piece of art.

7. Framing

Framing includes the camera shots and angles used across images and film to foster differing audience reactions and emotions. These techniques include a close-up, extreme close-up, mid shots, aerial shots, and many more. 

Using this in an essay could look like this: The artist uses an extreme close-up of the subject to create a feeling of tension and unease in the viewer. 

8. Proportion and Scale

Proportion is the size of the different parts of an object in relation to each other. Scale is the size of one object to another in the same artwork. 

Using this in an essay could look like: The artist uses realistic proportions across the image. The artist plays with scale to create a more surrealist feel in the image. 

9. Point of View

Point of view refers to how the shot is framed in reference to the viewer or a character. For example, is the audience placed level with, above or below the subject of the image. 

Using this in an essay could look like: The point of view in the image places the viewer looking down at the subject. 

10. Text and Typography

Text and typography are the words used within an image to convey a literal or figurative message. This is influenced by the colour, size, and font of the text as well as its repetition throughout the image. 

Using this in an essay could look like: The text within the image conveys both its literal message based on the words, and a subliminal message based on the wider context of the whole image. 

Need extra help with English assignments?

Ready to take your visual analysis skills to the next level? Sign up for our English tutoring services today and get personalised guidance and support from experienced academic personal trainers. 

Whether you need help with literary analysis, essay writing, or visual techniques in literature, our team is here to help you succeed. Contact us now to schedule your first session and start achieving your academic goals!

The post Visual Techniques for English Essays: A Complete Guide appeared first on A Team Tuition.

Set on 6.5 seaside hectares at the base of Castle Hill, Townsville Grammar School is the oldest boarding school in North Queensland. Since 1888, they have provided an experience that helps boarders to develop into young people of character by focusing on structure, routines, expectations of personal behaviour and building resilience. 

While working with the Director of Boarding, Jaye Beutel, over the past few years, we have been able to see the true benefits of developing student diligence and mindset. TGS recognises that developing skills and strategies to be successful are crucial when helping students meet their academic goals. This happens over the course of the student’s journey, not just in school, but in the boarding house and during prep time.

Jaye and the boarding staff at Townsville Grammar School saw the opportunity to improve grades and diligence of lower to middle level students, and made that one of their priorities in 2021. Jaye explains that TGS “prides themselves on academic achievement, and to give our students every opportunity to meet their academic potential, we need to align themselves with programs that set our students up for success.” 

The staff analysed their current situation, recognising one challenge was working students who come to the school with such a wide variety of educational experiences. Jaye explains that “many of these students are young learners that have not been in a traditional classroom. They have not had to apply themselves to the rigorous standards of an academic environment and be successful”. This transition into boarding life is crucial to success. 

One way to ease this transition and develop boarding students’ diligence and grades was by providing all TGS Boarders in Years 7-9 with an Academic Framework and Strategy. Jaye had previously worked with A Team Tuition and our Academic Personal Trainers on the Boarder Advantage Program at The Southport School and he realised that “if it worked for regional students at TSS, it could have a huge impact at Townsville Grammar School”. Along with working at other schools, A Team Tuition is the only academic tutoring provider for ABSA, meaning that the advantage program is built for boarders. 

We met with Jaye and tailored the A Team Tuition Boarder Advantage Program to the School’s goals and curriculum. For TGS, the plan included providing academic strategy and tutoring sessions to Year 7 – 9 boarders during prep time. We target the Year 7 to 9 students because this is the period they need to learn to manage their schooling. It is the perfect opportunity to develop the habits required for the rest of their schooling before the work load increases. Jaye requested the program be delivered in a way that is formalised but also highly relational so that “the tutor can be focused on academic encouragement, while our staff can be focused on the emotional setting of the boarders. It becomes personal and highly relational. Everyone has their own specific roles in the boarding house, which helps with the student-boarding relationship”. 

Jaye iterates that “the program has a clear purpose that is defined by TGS and it’s not just sitting down and helping students with homework”. The sessions give boarders the opportunity to build and apply skills that help in the classroom. Not only are the Academic Personal Trainers experts on the curriculum, they employ a teachable moments program to coach and mentor students. Teachable moments are times when the student shows signs that they are needing or ready to learn crucial skills. This can be anything, including study strategies, organisation or personal development. By identifying and acting on teachable moments, Academic Personal Trainers are able to transfer their skills to students and help them become better equipped learners.

In order to ensure we were meeting the School’s goals, student results and data was heavily tracked throughout the year. While working with the TGS students, our Academic Personal Trainers keep track of key data points including their attendance, session focus, and rating each student’s engagement and confidence level. These data points are aligned to the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by Robert Marzano, off which our model is based, and the same education model used in schools Australia-wide. The first layer of getting a student to succeed is giving them the tools and motivation to want to succeed and feel they need to succeed. These data points are the first indicators that we are on track to high academic performance. 

TGS has a very similar outlook on student performance. Jaye explains that “the focus has now been shifted from student’s levels of achievement to who is working hard, and recognising them for their work. Students are scored in class on their diligence, and many boarding activities use diligence as a source of encouragement. This includes special awards and the Diligence Cup, which is awarded each term to the leading house for their average diligence score from in classes.

To coincide with TGS tracking student diligence and grades, Jaye was able to compare his results to the quarterly report we provide that demonstrates evidence of consistent mindset, strategy and support progress. The data and tracking allowed Jaye to see the clear transformation across the Year 7 – 9 boarding students, as you can see below: 

While working to improve the grades and diligence for Year 7 – 9 boarders, Jaye found that giving students an academic framework and strategy gave them the motivation and tools to succeed in school. With the commitment and dedication of both A Team Academic Personal Trainers and the TGS staff, we were able to develop and evolve a strategy and be reactive to students’ needs. For example, if a student seemed to be trending downhill with confidence or engagement, there was an opportunity to jump in before it was too late. Jaye’s dedication to the program and keeping track of students performance outside of sessions made it apparent that when a student’s confidence and engagement increase through the program, so does their motivation to apply the strategies they are learning in the classroom and, in turn, get better academic results.

The post How Townsville Grammar Boarders Surpassed Academic Goals appeared first on A Team Tuition.

“We Believe That Any Student, Anywhere Can Achieve “A” Grades With The Right Support, Strategies and Mindset”

Our team of specially recruited and extensively trained boarding school tutors doesn’t just help your child improve grades.  Our program is developed in consultation with academics, coaches, and child psychologists to help your child overcome the emotional challenges of boarding school life while reaching new academic heights.

Why we’re the preferred tutoring service for the Australian Boarding Schools Association

For over a decade, we’ve been proving that simple tutoring isn’t enough to create elite academic performance.  For boarding school students, the additional emotional and mindset challenges can impact not only their wellbeing but their futures.  We are the only Australian tutoring firm implementing an “emotional wellbeing” approach to academia.  And it works.  87% of our students go from C/D grades to A/B grades, often within a single semester. We work closely with ABSA to ensure we exceed their expectations in supporting boarding schools, parents and most importantly, kids.

We “get” your challenges

All of our tutoring programs have been developed in conjunction with educators, coaches and child psychologists.  That’s why we can help students overcome the additional psychological barriers to learning, that absence from family can create.

Whether the child is “embracing parent-free freedom” at the cost of their grades, or missing home too much to focus, our team is carefully trained to identify psychological barriers and overcome them.

We then roll out a study strategy for your child that includes time spent on attitude, mindset and emotional wellbeing.

Constant Communication, Constant Support

One of the fundamental principles of our approach to tutoring is the “child’s support network”.  Your child needs the support and influence of the school, teachers, peers, parents and tutors to thrive.  In a boarding house, this means additional support from tutors to support the parent’s key roles:

• Overseeing homework and study at home
• Acting as a cheerleader
• Providing positive influence
• Providing mentoring
• Assisting in navigating social and emotional situations

We liaise with your child’s support network to ensure there are no gaps and provide feedback and communication with the whole network – so your child’s educational needs are seamlessly met.

Boarding School Tutors for ALL Students in Australia

Our tutors visit students in house across Australian boarding schools and provide online tutoring to boarders across Australia.    There are two ways to engage A Team Tuition to assist your boarder.

Work directly with A Team Tuition

We provide a direct service to parents on campus in South East Queensland and Sydney boarding schools or online across the rest of Australia.  You must speak to your school about our tutors visiting campus.  (Note that all our tutors are fully insured, blue carded and trained in child safety as well as COVID-19 best practices).

Talk to your boarding school

As the exclusive supplier of tutors through the Australian Boarding Schools Association, we partner directly with schools to manage their Boarder Prep sessions.  These two-hour sessions are designed to give students time to do study and exam preparation.  Our tutors attend these sessions and offer both one on one customised help, and group assistance where needed.

Tutoring for International Boarders

Is your child coming to Australia to study?  Our boarding school tutors can provide full support for the international baccalaureate program as well as intermediate and advanced English to assist your student to catch up with their Australian peers.  We understand that international boarders face unique challenges, so our boarding school tutors will assist your child to settle in and get right to work!  Call our team on  +617 5526 0351 to discuss your child’s needs.

Not sure which service suits your child best?

Talk to us now.  We’ll help your child to thrive.

The post Australian Boarding Schools Tutors – Information For Parents appeared first on A Team Tuition.

Every single student, out of thousands of students, had one thing holding them back: Mindset

That means that every single student underperforming at school has the potential to raise their grades. How can you tell if your child is underperforming at school? Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

The Distracted/Unmotivated Mindset

Your teen sits down to start an assignment and then “bing” the phone notifies her of a TikTok she must watch. So you take her phone. And that goes down a treat. Then, you find her in her room, not studying, she’s going through drawers looking for something. So you sit her back at her desk. Finally, she even attempts to tidy her room as a procrastination tool. You don’t rush to stop her… because you know, you’re witnessing a miracle in front of your very eyes… but eventually, she MUST do the assignment. She’s distracting herself. Putting off work. It’s not that she’s lazy. Distraction is actually an issue of poor confidence. She’s trying to communicate that she’s so unsure of her work that she’d rather clean her room than attempt it.

How we change the “Distracted/Unmotivated” mindset

We get to the root of your child’s confidence issues and remove the barriers they’re facing. By creating more engaging lessons that help your child to break down the workload and to explore it on their terms, they find the confidence to take ownership of their work. This looks different for every child. For some kids, it’s about turning the workload into a game of sorts, where there is reward for discovering steps to tackle the subject matter. For others, it’s about a change of scene, where they are free to move around and take in some sunshine while they work. For some kids, it’s about improving their study strategy. It’s very, very rarely about closing them up in a dull room!

What does it mean in practice?

Ethan was a B student. Not bad. Doing OK. But his mother worried about his lack of motivation and she believed he wasn’t reaching his full potential. Tutor Brit took Ethan away from the standard desk set up and attacked his workload with beanbags and whiteboards. She let him lead the way in learning. She introduced fun and interactive ways for him to break down the workload – so he could focus on it, without distraction. Ethan is now an “A” student and the recipient of the coveted Principal’s Award.

Read Ethan’s Story

The “I Can’t Do It” Mindset

Your teen tells you, “I just don’t understand it. I can’t do it.” This quickly transforms into “It’s stupid, when will I even need this in the future?” Pretty soon, an underperforming student is a failing student because they feel that they’re just not bright enough to understand the curriculum. We see this a lot in students who are heavily skewed to either left or right brain learning. If your child thrives at Art and English, every maths exam feels like a big opportunity to fail.

How we change the “I Can’t Do It” mindset

Our tutors first address their learning language. The three primary learning languages dictate how well your student can take in different information. If your child is an aural learner, who retains information through reading and listening, a sheet of formulas can feel like an utter impossibility. So, our first step is to understand how your child learns and to translate the curriculum into the messages that their brain best receives and processes. Same information, different communication. Once your child can process the information in a familiar way, the “I can’t do it” mindset disappears. They can do it. And we can do it. Our tutors are trained to make a maths lesson feel like an English lesson. To make an English lesson echo a physics lesson.

What does it mean in practice?

Meet Ava. Ava went from a B- student to an A+ student in a month with our tutor’s help. It was that fast, and that simple. She merely needed her lessons transformed into the language that suited her needs.

Read Ava’s Story 

The Overwhelm Mindset

Your child seems to take FOREVER to complete a simple assignment. They sit down to do their homework and it’s a struggle for all concerned. In the time it should take to get the first subject done, they still haven’t located a suitable pen. As a parent, words like lazy and disorganised start popping into mind, and you worry that your child will struggle with other life skills, like holding down a job. Deep breaths.

How we change the “Overwhelm” mindset

Every child is different, but our tutors would begin looking for clues as to the source of the child’s overwhelm.  Most often it comes down to poor study strategy skills. We assume that by high school, children have developed a set of skills that will carry them through their academic career but in a surprising number of students, this is not the case. Something as simple as looking at an assignment sheet and recognising the smaller tasks required to make up the bigger submission, to order these and to begin attacking them – this gap in your child’s understanding will cause underperformance in all areas of their school life. Our approach is to identify these gaps and help them to “relearn” how to study.

What does that look like in practice?

Joseph was a “C” student who was underperforming at school because he struggled with the “how” to study. It’s hard for a teacher in a busy classroom to pick apart a child’s underperformance and find the cause, so our tutor Emily took on that responsibility. Joseph, armed with an easy to follow study strategy, became an A student in no time.

Read Joseph’s Story

The Low Priority Mindset

What is the distraction your child is feeling is justified? What if there’s something big going on in her personal life or home life?  How do you get a kid with a lot on her plate to keep focused on schoolwork?  No child is beyond helping. We have worked with kids from all manner of backgrounds, including children who have endured terrible hardship and even trauma. When your world is chaotic, it’s hard to find mind space to dedicate to school work.

How we change the “Low Priority” mindset

We acknowledge the stress that the child is under and help them to find ways to work within the space that they have. It may mean finding a study strategy that helps them “do more with less time” or to give them the confidence boost they need to attack a task without hesitation and with complete focus. Our team is carefully trained to recognise challenges to learning. We empower children to take control of their studies and this in turn helps them feel more in control of their situations.  Our program has been developed by child psychologists to ensure that no child, no matter how much chaos they work within, is left behind.

What does this look like in practice?

Meet Skylah. Skylah was an “E” student. For her teachers, Skylah represents the most challenging student in the class. She was simply unable to keep up. What our tutor Libbie discovered was that Skylah was coping with a sick mum. Not only did that mean she was carrying a heavy emotional load, it also meant that she was picking up the slack at home. She had very limited time for study and her grades were suffering. We helped her find ways to get more achieved in a very limited time. We helped her feel more “in control” of her life by helping her take charge of her studies.  Skylah is now in the top 5% at school. She’s killing it. We could not be prouder of Skylah!

Read Skylah’s Story

And this is just the tip of the iceberg for underperforming at school

There are so many negative mindsets that end in your child underperforming at school. As parents, it’s almost impossible for you to diagnose and correct a problem with your teen’s mindset. Your child’s teacher will likely have made some progress, but nothing compares to intensive one-on-one diagnosis and correction. That’s where A Team Tuition has focused, with our “Academic Personal Training” program. All of our tutors are trained in overcoming barriers to learning and we’re proud of our many, many success stories. It’s not just these kids, we have hundreds of stories just like theirs. Your child could be one of them.

The post How to Develop an Action Plan for Underperforming Students appeared first on A Team Tuition.

It is normal for students to struggle with school work from time to time. Whether it is difficulty understanding a new topic or with time management. Failure results in learning. Learning results in intellectual and self-growth. The problem is when a student doesn’t learn from their failure. This is when unhealthy study traits start growing their roots.

As parents and tutors, it is our job to identify these traits. Once we identify them, then we can start to de-weed. However, in saying that… trait identification is not always an easy thing to do. Luckily, at A Team Tuition we are trained to do just that! Below, is a list of the top five worst traits of struggling students. Once you know the signs, helping struggling students is not as hard as you may thnk.

1) Procrastination

The Procrastinator… the one who will find any excuse to postpone starting their work. Procrastination can be anything from cleaning to watching just one more episode on Netflix. Let’s be honest… we all do it at some point. However, procrastination becomes dangerous, when it is done despite the negative consequences.

If a student procrastinates it will likely result in:

• Unfinished homework
• Starting an assignment at the last minute
• Staying up late at night to finish work
• Cramming for exams
• High levels of stress
• Poor results

Does any of this sound familiar? If yes, then don’t stress!

Here are some fantastic tips on how to help students struggling with the problematic procrastination cycle…

• Show the student that you support and believe in them. This will give them the confidence to approach the task at hand.
• Help the student with their time-management skills and encourage early preparation.
• Ensure the student studies in a quiet area, without any distractions. This will reduce opportunities to procrastinate and enhance productivity.
• Implement A Team Tuition’s tutoring services. Our tutors provide mentorship and work side by side with students to ensure early assessment preparation. This also allows students to develop time-management skills that will last a lifetime.

Remember… don’t procrastinate, dominate!

2) Is your student struggling by being easily distracted by social media, TV and the surrounding environment

In this day and age, students are surrounded by an ocean of technology. From laptops to phones to iPads… social media, the internet, and television is just one swipe away.

It is undeniable that technology has great prospects for a fantastic study tool. However, it can become a serious problem when that beautiful, beckoning, blue screen becomes an irresistible distraction! Today, this virtual trap is the leading founder of unproductivity.

Does your child do their schoolwork in front of the TV? Do they have their phone next to them whilst studying? Do they consistently not complete any work during designated study time?

If the answer is yes, then here are some great strategies to ‘unfriend’ that horrible habit and help your struggling student:

• Remove all electronics during designated study time.
• If the internet is needed for tasks, provide increased supervision or use settings to block access to social media apps.
• Encourage work to be completed in a quiet study area without any distractions.
• Implement A Team Tuition’s tutoring services. We know how important it is for our students to study in a quiet, relaxed and distraction-free environment. Tutors work one on one with students to ensure constant engagement and task completion.

Turn that phone off and get to work! You’ll be thankful for it later!

3) Lack of time management

24 hours. 1440 Minutes. 86400 seconds. Still, there never seems to be enough time to get things done in the day.

Time management is a skill that everyone needs. It is the process of planning out and controlling the time spent on tasks to increase productivity. As adults, there’s a lot to get done… from kids to work, cooking to cleaning, driving to staying fit and healthy… I could go on and on.

Well for kids, this skill is first developed in school. They must learn to juggle school work, tutoring sessions, family, friends, sport, and other extra-curricular activities. This workload only increases as they trudge their way up through the school years. As children progress through the grades they take on more and more, but many know how to help when students struggle with managing their time.

If these skills are not developed, students can become overwhelmed and suffer academically. Signs that a student is lacking time management skills include:

• Leaving schoolwork unfinished
• Staying up late at night to finish school work
• Cramming for exams
• Failing to proofread assignments
• High levels of stress

So… how do struggling students improve their time-management skills?

At A Team Tuition, we have a series of tested time management strategies that are implemented in tutoring sessions. We believe that how we can help struggling students is to help set them up for life-long success. Some basic techniques we have found effective are:

• Keep a diary with a detailed schedule and stick to it.
• Utilise study breaks as encouragement for productivity.
• Display a calendar on a wall in the study area.

However, there is nothing more effective than having a personal cheerleader to motivate you on the sidelines! At A Team Tuition, our tutoring services provide additional support to students that need a bit extra help sticking to their time management plan.

Remember it will take time, support and determination to master the art of time management!

4) Lack of goal setting

Every year we all set new year resolutions. Some of us keep it for a week, a month or maybe even for the whole year. But let’s be realistic… not many people succeed at achieving these goals.

But maybe we should all try harder? Setting realistic, timely and achievable goals can have fantastic benefits. It increases efficiency, focus, and productivity.

For kids, goal setting should first be practiced in school. This gives them something to strive and push themselves for. Let’s face it… a student who is putting in the time and effort to achieve an A grade is going to receive a higher result than a student who doesn’t care what grade they get. Signs that students are lacking goal setting skills include:

• Failure to set any goals throughout the term
• Doesn’t achieve any set goals
• Make excuses for failing to meet goals
• Fails to reflect on previous results

If this sounds like someone you know… to encourage positive goal setting you can:

• Ask the student to write a list of short-term and long-term goals.
• Implement different goal strategies (eg. Staircase Goals, Smart Goals, Areas for Change).
• Utilise reward programs for achieving set goals.
• Implement A Team Tuition’s tutoring services to provide ongoing support to achieve set goals.

Goal setting will take time to get the hang of, but it is a skill they will use for life.

5) Poor Attendance At School

To most people this seems like pure common sense, right? If a student is not at school, they are not engaged and learning. Obviously, this fails to set a student up for success and will likely result in low academic results.

Poor attendance can also have devasting long-term effects… as most schools have an attendance threshold that students are required to meet. In some cases, chronic poor attendance can affect a student’s ability to proceed to the next school year or even graduate.

Does your child have a poor attendance rate? Are they…

• Refusing to go to school?
• Constantly taking sick days without a doctor’s certificate?
• Failing to meet attendance thresholds?

However, what people don’t often realise is that there is normally an underlying issue to a child’s hesitancy of going to school. This may be anything from a lack of confidence to instances of bullying.

But no matter what the issue is, we have some methods to get that attendance rate back up over that green line:

• Emphasise the importance and benefits of school attendance to the student.
• Build rapport with the student, so that they will tell you any underlying issues.
• Meet with your child’s school principal or teacher about reasons for their poor attendance.
• Parents should be authoritative and enforce attendance.
• Set an attendance rule (e.g. No days off without a medical certificate).

Remember, while school may not be the most exciting place on earth, it does have its pros. From seeing friends to a range of diverse classes… there is something exciting for everyone. Make sure to emphasise the positives!

So, there you have it… there are the five fatal traits and how to help struggling students! If your child resembles any of these traits, don’t stress! Just follow these tips and your student should be back on track in no time!

IMPORTANT!

If these issues do persist, please do not hesitate to contact your student’s school. They will have a range of student support resources available. Externally, A Team Tuition’s tutoring services can provide additional support that is individualised to your student’s needs.

The post Five Fatal Study Traits – How to Help Struggling Students appeared first on A Team Tuition.

At A Team Tuition, we envision a holistic method when it comes to student transformations. For boarding school students, this holistic approach is pertinent in order to provide tailored support to suit the needs of newly independent students. When we were approached by The Southport School (TSS) in 2017 about ways in which we can adopt our personalised service to assist a group of boys in boarding, we came to the realisation that there is an evident gap between boarding youth and the traditional structure of boarding learning.

Since then, we have expanded our service through our recent partnership with the Australian Boarding School’s Association to establish boarding transition programs in not only TSS, but also Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School and St Joseph’s Nudgee College Brisbane, targeting around 150 boarding students from Years 7-12.

The Struggles of Boarding School Students

Boarding school students are inherently more likely to experience a more turbulent educational experience. With the primary demographic of boarding school students being located from rural, remote and regional Australia, most boarding students have had minimal exposure to classroom environments prior to making the move. These students have developed their educational abilities via distance education with limited face-to-face interactions. With an absence of integrated learning, these students tend to struggle even more with the technologically advanced construction of well-established schools and how learning has evolved beyond pen and paper. Thus, the sharp transition from independent learning into communal living and study may potentially detriment the learning experience of these students if their prior education engagements are not addressed or recognised in the process.

Executive Director of ABSA, Richard Stokes, has found through his role that “one of the things our boarders have to do is become independent very quickly. Some students are good at that, and some aren’t. Independence is one of the challenges that every boarder must face.”

General Manager of ABSA, Thomas Dunsmore reiterates this viewpoint and acknowledges that it’s quite easy to distinguish day students from boarding students based on the way these students interact within groups. Accordingly, for some students, the rigid structure of quiet communal study does not match their former learning methods, requiring students to essentially re-find an effective way to learn without the guidance of their parents.

Click Here to find a boarding school tutor

The A Team Difference

What differentiates our approach from traditional study programs is our emphasis on identifying the hurdles that boarding students must overcome and formulating an appropriate academic strategy to suit their educational needs while providing an element of mentorship. Each and every one of our boarding transition programs has been tailored to align with the values of the school, their boarding houses and the needs of each boarding student. We then integrate our personal touches into the program by breaking students into groups based on their learning languages, current grades or behavioural traits. Our School Programs Coordinator and Current Program Convenor for TSS, Matthew Judkins has assisted the Program Convenors in ensuring this is prominent across the board.

“We work with each school to form groups of students to maximise productivity while minimising distractions and behavioural issues. To do this, we consider the APT’s evaluation of each student’s behaviour, the school’s statistics on behaviour, diligence and grades, as well as the school’s understanding of each student’s social circle and behaviour. Ultimately, each program is tailored to the needs and expectations of each school to achieve our long-term goal of self-directed learning,” states Matt.

“We recognise that these programs cannot be generalised and implemented in a formulaic way. Although the certain key elements of content assistance and academic strategy features in all programs, each program is distinctive from the other in both form and substance. We are working with, and must therefore accommodate for, young men and women from 12 to 18 years old with different backgrounds, family circumstances, cultures, learning methods, strengths and weaknesses.”

Our first boarding transition program at TSS, has seen students in Years 7 and 8 flourish as a result of this personalisation. Former TSS Program Convenor, Brittany McEvoy, recognised that a bunch of rowdy boys are unlikely to learn effectively through rote learning, or silent study and instead, she incorporated physical activities centred around English, Maths and Science in the form of weekly challenges into the program.

“One week the boys had to complete a certain number of questions and get the correct answer to have a shot at throwing paper into a bin with a 1 metre radius. Another challenge required the boys to figure out the right amount of water to pour into a bottle to be able to successfully bottle-flip it on four different surfaces,” recalls Brittany.

Whilst these activities allowed the boys to jump up on their feet and have a little bit of fun, they were also learning how to calculate the perimeter, circumference, volume and area of shapes! One of the most distinct features of the TSS program is the rewards’ system designed by the accumulative efforts of the 11 Academic Personal Trainers running the program. Noting that these boys are at the start of their high school journey, they’re still on the cusp of transitioning out of rewards that you’d typically receive in primary school. The rewards’ system was created to encourage their learning, but to provide them with rewards that will ultimately accumulate over time to praise continuous hard work as opposed to single flows of effort.

The second of our programs at Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School consists of students from Year 8 all the way to Year 12. The obvious distinguishing factor between this program and TSS, is working with a group of girls as opposed to boys. In addition to this, subjects expand beyond Maths, English and Science to include humanities and business. Due to the fact that a large portion of the students are in their senior years of schooling, the sessions are more “content heavy” with less time for fun activities during the weeks of assessment. The St Joseph’s Nudgee College Brisbane follows the same lines as IGGS

Envisioning the Future of Boarding

Being a part of a program that’s transforming the lives of boarding students has really shaped our perspective on how academic programs leave a lasting impact when personalised. When talking with many of the Academic Personal Trainers from these programs, they have found the programs to not only have a lasting effect on the students, but also on themselves. APT Keelan Hood found the most rewarding part of the TSS program to be “seeing the boys grow and becoming more confident in themselves. Being by their side knowing that I’m making a difference to their lives is very satisfying. Most of these boys don’t see their parents for months on end so I consider myself the big brother that they never had.” Brodie Chong, the Convener at Ipswich’s Girls Grammar School considers being part of the program to be “the most intrinsically rewarding experience” by ”creating genuine connections with the students while watching them fulfil their academic potential is very rewarding.”

When sitting down with Richard Stokes and discussing the academic programs within the various boarding colleges, he revealed that he envisions a focus on academic strategy will be the solution to lifting academic support within boarding houses. Boarding has become almost the forgotten sibling of schools and as a system designed to provide added support on top of content that has been delivered in ordinary schooling, the goal is for this perception to be altered.

“We have a very strong strategic plan particularly over the next 3 years to make sure that we become the go-to body when it comes to boarding, and this certainly involves A Team’s program. We want to place academic standards at the forefront and develop systems to certify and show how the boarding programs are doing well.”

For A Team Tuition, we want to be able to provide this level of support beyond our pre-established programs to be able to teach students not only the secrets to academic success, but to maximise their potential in all aspects of life. We’re hoping that our formalised partnership with ABSA will allow us to continue the streams of success throughout boarding in Australia.

Find out more about our partnership with the Australian Boarding School Association

The post A Team Tuition Signs Partnership With The Australian Boarding Schools Association appeared first on A Team Tuition.

People contact us mostly because they want a specific result: an improvement in their or their child’s grades.

Within the tutoring industry, there is an incredible debate about what constitutes “good tutoring” and how this specific result can be achieved. Tutoring companies often utilize their own programs and resources to create what they believe to be the quintessential tutoring program to help students improve their grades.

Often, these programs are composed of additional worksheets that align with the student’s current curriculum, and these worksheets have students repeating the same work that they are given in the classroom. Otherwise, programs are personalized and developed by the tutoring company to “enhance” previous content knowledge that the student may be lacking in.

This essentially reinforces to the child that they must simply do ‘x’ amount of more work than other children, which all too often creates the perception that it is because they are ‘slow’ or ‘dumb.’ Not only does this have potentially negative repercussions for the child, the parents’ biggest complaint to us in this, is that it often didn’t address the reason “WHY” the child is struggling to understand the concept in the first place.

This, unfortunately, is the public perception of tutoring today.

When we attempt to change results without asking why someone is acting or thinking in that manner, whatever change you may get, if any, is usually short-lived and misunderstood.

How is Academic Personal Training Different?

At A Team Tuition, we’ve taken a little bit of a different route. Asking “WHY?” is one of our favourite questions, and it’s the main reason that we have chosen to stray away from the ‘traditional’ tutoring standard, and to create something completely new, comprised of elements that actually allow for transformation.

Rather than creating a program that piles on extra work for students in the form of worksheets, or simply provides them with two hours of help with their study, we have created Academic Personal Training – a program that is unlike any other tutoring program.

Why combine two elements – academic and sports training – that seem so vastly different? And why not include extra resources and “build” upon the teaching that students receive in class?

The answer is simple – we do not believe that providing additional content necessarily results in significant academic improvement. All too often, tutoring companies can attempt to replace the role of teachers; however, it is important that tutoring does not replace teaching, but rather enhances it

This is why we have created Academic Personal Training. The title, albeit a bit strange at first, is intended to signify the manner in which we seek to train students not in their content and what they’re learning, but rather to perfect how they learn.

And it’s working. As of the end of 2017, 87% of our students have shifted from D/C grades, to achieving A’s and B’s. More importantly, we have encountered countless students who have developed their self-confidence, motivation, and attitude towards learning – measures that are equally, if not more, important to us as grades.

We complement this program with a behavioural change model that is used most commonly in organisational culture (Connors and Smith, 2011).  This is because culture drives the way people think and act, and if the culture surrounding our students’ attitudes to study is positive, then they are going to take positive actions.

Our program focuses on creating constructive, meaningful experiences that then shape our students’ beliefs about their capabilities.  These beliefs directly influence their actions, which create the results they are after.

We know that getting results actually begins with a student’s experiences. Breaking down success into the above elements directly impacts a student at this level.

We teach them by creating experiences in which they begin to understand that success is not innate, nor is talent, but occurs as a result of deliberate and strategic practice.  This, in turn, gives each and every one of our students the belief that they are directly in control of their success.

It's Not What You Practice, But How You Practice

Strategic Practise

The first area, which fuels one’s skill level, is strategic practice.

Strategic practice involves being deliberate and focused about one’s learning, by configuring the best possible way an individual learns and understands content. It involves planning, reviewing, and implementing phases that are specifically focused on honing skills, increasing your strengths, and developing your weaknesses.

Within Academic Personal Training, developing strategic practices means looking at the specific student as a whole. It encompasses teaching the student vital skills such as: how to manage their time effectively, how to balance their school work whilst maintaining their own personal sense of self, hobbies, and interests, and how to personalise the manner in which they learn.

For instance, one of the major tools we use to personalise our approach lies in discovering and developing a student’s learning language. We believe that every student is different in the way they learn, and students react to different studying styles – be it through visual methods such as drawing diagrams or creating visual posters for revision, aural methods such as listening to YouTube videos or podcasts, or kinaesthetic methods such as physical hands-on activities, or demonstrations. Academic Personal Training helps guide our students towards adapting their learning to their preferred learning language; once this is established as a strength, our students are then taught how to strengthen their understanding and experience with their weaker learning languages (you can read more about this here).

As Academic Personal Trainers, we work specifically with every student to understand and develop this. Across a term, an Academic Personal Trainer will assist their student with realising their learning language, teach them how to personalise their learning, develop their time management skills, and help them configure their organisational strategies.

Our students are taught how to study in a way that is effective and efficient, rather than overbearing and done at the last minute; they practice their learning, and hone in on their abilities, rather than simply practicing content over and over again. Having that understanding and practice under their belt is what truly allows our students to then possess the ‘skills’ they need to succeed in school. This in turn, directly shapes the beliefs they have about their ability to do so.

Why do we do this?

We do this because we believe that every student deserves to understand themself and to know how to optimise their academic strategies. Too often, ‘skill’ translates subconsciously to ‘talent’ – however, skill is distinct from something that is naturally owned, and is rather something that is grown and developed over time.

We believe that helping a student configure their specific strategic practices will allow them to not only understand but also to appreciate themselves and the way in which they learn. This sets them up to successfully develop not only their academic skill, but any skill they choose to excel in.

After all, you can succeed at any skill if you learn how to develop and grow it in a strategic, purposeful way!

Having grown our students’ skill through helping them develop strategic practices, Academic Personal Training then focuses on improving our students’ effort levels through two main areas.

The first of these is our students’ mindset. You see, increasing one’s effort is a bit more complicated than improving one’s skill. While this may seem strange at first, think about it – how many students (and even people in general) do you know that have the skill to succeed, yet fail to put in the right effort for it?

When people believe they are capable of doing what it takes to achieve a goal and have a solid plan to implement in order to obtain this goal, they start to take action.  These actions now become purposeful, driven by intent and facilitated by their support network (that’s us!).

For many talented students, this is the greatest roadblock to their academic success.

Often, this roadblock stems back to a terrible mindset, which is developed from a lack of intrinsic motivation. You see, when a student is motivated by an external factor – for instance, achieving an A so that they can get a reward – it poses an extreme risk. External motivation means that the outcome and reward is controlled by an external element; for example, achieving an A is not just down to the student’s effort, but is ultimately down to the teacher’s control and final say.

This means that if a student does not achieve to the right degree, two things can happen: either they fail and miss out on the reward, creating a really negative experience that often leaves them completely demotivated; or, they are given the reward anyway out of sympathy (or any other reason), and the process they went through is completely nullified. This is because they begin to expect a reward, rather than working for it.

Either outcome is a proponent in creating a distinctly negative mindset. Many of our students upon first coming to us have a negative mindset towards their learning and educational capabilities, simply because they have been externally motivated and therefore externally controlled all their life.

Our aim is to have our students become intrinsically motivated – in essence, motivated simply by knowing that, with learning, they themselves will be improved. You can read about the benefits of intrinsic motivation, and some basic ways to begin fostering it here, in one of our Parenting blogs. The essential idea is that with intrinsic motivation, the process of learning is foregrounded, rather than any given product of it (for example, grades or rewards).

With this, the process of learning becomes the reward itself.

Before, I mentioned that IQ is the lowest ranking contributor to a student’s academic success. If the process of learning becomes the reward, students are far more likely to produce the highest-ranked contributing factor towards success:

Grit.

In psychological terms, grit is defined as the “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” It is, essentially, the predecessor to talent, and it is the greatest factor affecting our personal mindset. Grit gives our students the ability to overcome challenges and setbacks by using the resources available to them, as well as developing their understanding of how to create resources where none are available. It is the personal drive within them to achieve, which then begins to fuel their efforts towards improving their grades.

Grit is the greatest part of developing a positive mindset – as soon as a student has an attitude of resilience, they are determined to give everything their absolute best, no matter what. As Academic Personal Trainers, we focus inherently on developing a student’s grit first and foremost, before even thinking about developing their content understanding.

Once a student has that ‘gritty’ attitude under their belt, and they are motivated intrinsically by the reward that the process of learning gives them, they are ready to begin construction on the final element of fostering positive and effective effort.

This element is not one that is touched on by any other tutoring company or program in the manner that Academic Personal Training does. However, it is perhaps one of the most important – if not the most important – factor in our students’ success:

Their Support

By “support”, we mean the other key members of our students’ team – those who are directly affecting and influencing them, both in their educational journey and in their personal life. While this may look different from student to student, the main members of a student’s support team are typically their parents, their teachers, and – in the case of Academic Personal Training – their tutor.

Now, it’s fairly easy to understand why it’s important to develop our students’ relationship to their teacher, or even to their tutor, as those are academic members who have a direct influence on their academic success. But you might find yourself asking, “Why is it important for me as a parent to be involved in my child’s academic journey – especially if I already am involved in growing and developing them as people outside of school?”

One study from Houtenville and Conway, however, found an absolutely jaw-dropping fact: Sufficient parental engagement (often in something as simple as encouraging them effectively) with a student’s learning led to academic outcomes that were equivalent to outcomes that only occurred if more than $1,000 was spent on each student individually by teachers and educational support systems.

That means that your support as a parent - be it in your encouragement, your help with their school work, your interaction with their teachers, or however you are involved in their learning - if it is effective and efficient, is worth more than spending $1,000 on school resources and individualised learning support!

 

Of course, as we mentioned, a parent’s job can be incredibly difficult, juggling their own personal lives, whilst supporting their children both as individuals and as learners. To help support our parents, Academic Personal Training includes a specific focus on assisting and guiding parents towards how to best support their children academically – thereby taking away the incredible stress of having to learn by themselves.

Academic Personal Training does this through the provision of our Parenting E-Book, which has been developed by a qualified development psychologist. We additionally have specific blogs that focus on helping parents develop their understanding of effective parental support for students, and our Academic Personal Trainers are trained specifically to connect our parents with their child’s progress and development and configure the best possible methods for parents to support their individual child as a student.

The other crucial component of a student’s support system is their teacher. As we mentioned earlier, we believe that tutoring should not replace classroom learning or the student’s teacher; rather, tutoring should supplement the education that the student is already receiving, allowing their current learning to become more effective and efficient.

It’s for this reason that our Academic Personal Trainers work tirelessly with our students to help develop effective classroom engagement and involvement strategies, to encourage our students to connect with their teachers personally and develop relationships. Teachers can be some of the most hard-working, sacrificial individuals on the planet, and if a student has their teacher on their side, they are near unstoppable!

More importantly, teaching our students how to work effectively with their teachers, their parents, or even their peers, allows them to develop skills that extend far beyond the simple realm of school. You’ll always have people that you interact or work with, and it is vital that you know not only how to work with them, but how to completely maximise the potential value that such a support system will add to your life!

Maximising Potential

This is, in essence, what we do overall as a company. Far beyond simply providing tutoring, A Team Tuition’s aim – our “WHY” in life – is maximizing potential. We believe that every student not only deserves the opportunity to be successful but most importantly, that they have the potential within them to be successful.

We believe that by teaching individuals the secrets to academic success, we are in turn teaching them how to maximize their potential in all areas of life.

After all, these areas are not simply restricted to one’s learning and education. Positive and effective strategies, mindsets, and support systems are vital in any area of life, and training yourself in these areas will result in success and achievement in any sector you choose. This counts for academics, sports, performing arts, or even business!

Our essential goal and drive in Academic Personal Training, therefore, is not simply to train students not only to learn properly but to excel in any area they choose. We don’t just create successful students, we create successful learners, who never cease to adapt and improve.

Ultimately, we simply want to transform as many lives as possible!

Find an academic personal trainer near you

The post Why Academic Personal Training Works: Benefits of Private Tutoring appeared first on A Team Tuition.