Sally, volunteer tutor and retired optometrist
Sally first heard about Action Tutoring during the pandemic, and wanted to do her bit to support children who were falling behind. She now volunteers as an online tutor.
Here’s what Sally has to say about her experience so far:
[I heard about Action Tutoring] during the pandemic, it was right back in 2020. [The newspaper was] talking about how children are really suffering and getting behind at school, and especially the ones, you know, where the parents weren’t able to help so much. Tutoring and Action Tutoring came up. Sitting up in bed at 11 o’clock at night on Google, I applied for it on the spot. It just seemed like something I could do.
Online tutoring is great because it enables so many more tutors to help – you literally can give one hour a week. And if you’re doing other exciting things in your life, you can actually do it from different places, as long as you’ve got a laptop with you.
In general, I think volunteering is important because it sort of fills the gaps and fills the needs. When there’s a small gap, it’s just important for volunteers to be able to step in and do what’s needed. And I think if there was nobody volunteering for anything, society would be much more disjointed.
If [the pupils] are motivated, and really learning, then it’s just so pleasurable. I mean, today was not great, because he is a very nice boy, but they’re off doing a horse club straight afterwards. And his mind is obviously on the horse club. Sadly, not really on mathematics today, but other days, he’s been a lot better. I have one very bubbly girl in Birkenhead. She’s 16 and she would basically do a thumbs up when she got something or succeeded in something and in the end I was doing it as well. And it’s just fun really.
[One thing that surprised me about tutoring was] the Vedamo programme being very good. The setup does work very well. It’s well organised – I like structured things. And it is well-structured.
[Tutoring] makes me more aware of mathematics. You know, you just sort of think about it a bit more. And education. It’s a really valuable tool for these young people’s future. It’s just a matter of being safe in the world, you know?
