Top Tips For First Time Tutors
Taken from National Tutor Training Refresher Strand days.
- Teach as much of each unit through practical activity as
possible. This will make the sessions realistic, fun and enjoyable
- try to ensure the practical sessions aren't just lead by you
(tutor), your Sports Leaders will be quickly engaged once you give
them the whistle. Resist the temptation to spoon feed; adopting a
problem solving approach that provides room for your Sports Leaders
to learn from mistakes is very beneficial.
- Provide leadership experiences early on - it's always an
advantage if this can be with a group of younger participants. This
will allow you to refer back to their real life experience from an
early stage in the course.
- Plan ahead; submit your Course Application a term before (if
possible!) - ensure your Assessment Plan, Scheme of Work and
Internal Assessment Records are all in place prior to starting
your course.
- Give your Sports Leaders as much on-going positive feedback as
possible, and ensure they acknowledge those areas that need to be
worked towards. Confidence, motivation and enthusiasm can be
developed through this.
- Before your candidates start, request that they write a letter
of application to the course, or invite them to a brief informal
interview. This will allow them to express their expectations of
the course (helping you to plan a course that could meet them), and
reasons for becoming a Sports Leader.
- Make use of the suggested practical activities in the Tutor
Resource Pack; consider how they can be used to develop some of the
character values.
- Consider fragmenting and combining the units you need to
teach, try to avoid delivering unit by unit. Consider planning
sessions focused on a specific theme such as playground activities
- invasion games or health related fitness - and then tie in the
Assessment Criteria that are most relevant to the chosen
theme.
- Use the Individual Candidate Internal Assessment Record to
track your candidate's achievement of Assessment Criteria as they
progress through the course, so they have a clear understanding of
their progress at any point of the course.
- If you can access your school sports partnership (SSP) calendar
of primary schools sports festivals (Hi 5's, Tag Rugby etc.), your
Sports Leaders could be involved in leading preparatory sessions
with the schools involved and support the festival on the day
(linking into units associated to officiating, fairplay and the
organisation of sports events and competitions).
- Keep hold of your candidate's Record of Achievements, it's
easier to manage and usually means less chance of having to pay for
replacements!
