The MyTutor

Schools Programme
Handbook
Contents
1. Welcome

2. Who you’re tutoring and the impact you’ll have

3. Your first lesson

4. Structure of a lesson

5. Recommended resources

6. Planning a sequence of lessons after your first lesson

7. Building rapport with your pupil

8. Handling tough situations

9. Using the lesson space

10. Lesson attendance

11. Get tutoring!

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1. Welcome

Welcome to this handbook for tutoring on the Schools Programme! It’s great
to have you on board and we’re excited to help you deliver great lessons to
pupils.

For those who are new to MyTutor – we’ve created this guide because we
know that your first lesson can be a little daunting if you’re new to tutoring.

Once you’ve read through it, you’ll be ready to deliver a first-rate lesson
confidently. You’ll learn more about the types of pupils you’ll be teaching, how
to approach lesson planning, and the skills that will be useful in tutoring on
the Schools Programme.

For experienced tutors, the guide will help you build on your current
knowledge, learn about the specifics of the MyTutor lesson space and how
Schools sessions work.

We recommend reading through the handbook before your first lesson and
referring back to it in future for a refresher – use the contents page to skip
around.

Ready to start learning? Let’s go!

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2. Who you’re tutoring and the impact you’ll have

We partner with over 1000 schools every year, matching their pupils with
inspiring tutors.
As a tutor on the Schools Programme, get ready to meet a vibrant mix of
pupils. Each pupil brings their own story, dreams, and obstacles to the table.
Many of the Schools Programmes are funded by the government's ‘Pupil
Premium Grant’ and the 'National Tuition Programme' or NTP. These
programmes were designed to offer life-changing tuition to pupils who
wouldn’t normally get that opportunity.
Some of the pupils you meet may be shy and reserved, others, really
enthusiastic and curious, while some may be disengaged and can test your
skills as a tutor. Every pupil is an individual deserving of our empathy and
understanding.
Even though many of the pupils are nervous to have tutoring, once they give
it a try, we find they develop important and special relationships with our
tutors. Dedicated time with you can make all the difference in building their
confidence and improving their grades.

To get a sense of the impact you can have, read our 2023 Impact Report.

Below is an example of the kind of pupil you might meet on the Schools
Programme.

Meet Bobbi:
Bobbi lives at home with her dad and sister. Her dad is
supportive but really busy with his job. Bobbi is new to
MyTutor and school hasn't given her much
information about what to expect. She’s nervous
about using her camera and microphone as she’s
never spoken to an adult that she doesn't know online
before. She wants help from tutoring but feels anxious
about what the lessons will be like.

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How has Bobbi’s tutor helped?
Bobbi’s tutor was great at getting to know her. He asked questions about
what she likes to do outside of school and seemed interested in her answers.
Bobbi’s tutor was patient with her, showed her how to use the lesson space,
and answered all her questions without making her feel daft. Bobbi wants to
keep attending her lessons because her tutor was warm, friendly, and
helpful.

3. Your first lesson

A. Read the teacher notes.

It’s vital to read the Teacher notes, Areas of focus, and Learning style section
of your pupil’s profile (you can find this on your Bookings page).
This provides important context on what the pupil’s been working on and
what the teacher expects you to cover in your lessons.
Teachers may also give you other important information about the pupil (for
example, if they’re particularly shy or nervous or have any SEN requirements
you need to be aware of) in this section. You’ll find the exam board, as well as
the grade the pupil is working at and working towards if they are a GCSE or
A-Level pupil.
If the areas of focus don’t reveal much, then chat with the pupil to understand
their goals, challenges, and how they learn best and find out what they would
like to learn.

B. Take time to get to know your pupil and put them at ease.
For some pupils, this might be the first time they’ve spoken to someone
outside of their peer group online, which can be nerve-wracking. Put them at
ease by sharing small details about yourself – this can create a powerful bond.
It could be your favourite hobby, the last film you saw in the cinema, or even
your favourite colour. By opening up, you encourage your pupils to do the
same, fostering an atmosphere of openness and connection. Just make sure
they’re suitable details to share with pupils.

C. Figure out how your pupil likes to learn.

Spend some time finding out how your pupil prefers to learn. Some pupils
might already know what they enjoy and what works for them, but chances

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are they won’t. Either way, it’s important that you take the leading role in
guiding the direction of the lessons. Use your first few sessions to try out a
range of different activities and find out what works.

Our experienced tutors often tell us that their pupils can be nervous about
making mistakes. Let your pupil know that it’s okay to get something wrong
and that everyone makes mistakes, including yourself. Explain that your time
together is all about them and that you’re here to work with them to achieve
their goals, so they should feel comfortable letting you know if they don’t
understand something and asking questions is encouraged.

💡 Some examples of activities you can try are in part 4 below.

D. Learn what to cover in future lessons.

In most cases, the areas of focus will give you a good idea of which topics to
cover. But if not, your first session should be designed to diagnose which
topics to focus on over the course of your lessons. To do this, you might like to:

● Plan a simple quiz (or use an online one) to probe understanding of key
concepts.
● Work through a topic list together and ask your pupil to rate how
comfortable/familiar they are with each topic using a red, amber,
green system. (See topic lists in part 6.)
● Have pupils write down everything they can think of about a topic in 3
minutes and note what’s missing.

E. Try a short activity.

If there’s time, try a quick activity on one of the topics you’ve identified. This
will give your pupil a taste of what to expect in future sessions and show them
the value in tutoring right from the start. See below for some ideas.

4. Structure of a lesson

Before you choose your lesson activities, you need to decide on 3 things: what
do I want my pupil to achieve by the end of the session (learning objectives),
how will I know if my pupil has achieved this (success criteria), and what do

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most pupils struggle with in this topic (misconceptions). Once you’ve
identified these, you can start to plan your lesson.

A lesson is typically made up of 3 sections: the warm-up, the main activity and
the plenary. Use your learning objectives, success criteria, and misconceptions
to choose the right kind of activities for each section of your lesson.

Warm-up
The warm-up is usually the first 5–10 minutes of your session. It should be an
activity that focuses on the key concepts that the pupil is going to use and
build on in the main activity. The warm-up can be used as a ‘hook’ to build the
pupil’s interest in the topic you’ll be covering.

Some examples of warm-up activities are:

● True/false quiz
● Multiple-choice quiz
● Correct the false statements
● If these are the answers, what are the questions?
● Matching sentence starts and ends
● Beat the clock: give as much info as possible on the keywords/themes
provided in (say) 60 seconds
● Topic mindmap: how much can you add in 2 minutes
● Which is the odd one out? Display categories of keywords and ask the
pupil to identify and explain which is the odd one out
● Vocabulary check: Get pupils to define key words that they’ll need to
know later in the lesson
● Ask pupils questions from previous lessons.

Main activity
In this section of the lesson, you should choose tasks aligned with the
learning objectives and success criteria and build on the concepts introduced
in the warm-up. This section of the lesson should be 30–40 minutes long.

Some ideas of main activities are:

● Mark a model answer together.

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 ● Demonstrate answering a question then get your pupil to try.
● Plan an essay answer.
● Have pupils write their own questions.
● Ask pupils to ‘Find two different ways to...’ and help the pupil to see why
the different methods work.
● Start with a basic question and then give pupils harder questions until
they get stuck.
● Get pupils to read and annotate a text passage.
● Give pupils a solution with mistakes in it and ask them to correct it.

Plenary
The purpose of a plenary is to recap the key points that you’ve covered in your
lesson. This allows the pupil to review the learning and helps you gauge if any
misconceptions need to be revisited next time. This should be the final 5–10
minutes of your session.

Some ideas of plenary activities are:

● Give pupils a mini quiz.
● Get pupils to sum up what they’ve learned in the session in one
sentence (or within a small word limit).
● Make a ‘k/w/l’ chart with columns labelled ‘know’, ‘want to know’ and
‘have learned’ and have pupils make notes in each about the lesson or
topic.
● Rate their understanding of various statements/topics on a confidence
scale.
● Get pupils to create a mnemonic that reflects what they’ve learned
today.
● Have pupils answer your questions without saying yes or no.
● Show an extract from another pupil’s work – have pupils identify 3
strengths and 3 pieces of advice for redrafting.
● Get pupils to write dictionary definitions for the key terminology
learned in the session.
● Share pupils’ work on different parts of the whiteboard and have the
group annotate each other’s with comments and feedback.
● Change roles. Ask pupils, “If you were the tutor, what questions would
you ask the pupil? And why?”.

Finish up

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End the lesson on a positive note by congratulating pupils on their efforts and
don’t forget to let them know what you’ll be covering next time.

💡 Top Tip: Assess throughout. All of these activities help you understand
what a pupil does and doesn’t know. If you reveal misconceptions, go back
and revisit those points. If they demonstrate they’ve grasped the concept, this
will build their confidence and help embed what they’ve learned – then you
can move on to the next topic or tackle something harder.

If pupils are struggling

● Use a real context and help the pupil to link the real with the abstract.
● Help pupils identify common errors and discuss why they happen.
● Ask pupils to explain the process to identify where the problem is.
● Go back to basics and try less challenging questions.
● Make it visual – use images, diagrams or tables to show the information
in a different way.
● Give pupils sentence starters as a jumping off point to frame their
answers.

💡 Top Tip: Work on communication. Tutoring isn’t lecturing – it’s all about
dialogue, and a key element of tutoring is thinking out loud. If you’re
demonstrating how to answer a question, explain your thought process, and
get pupils to do the same. This helps you spot where errors lie and helps
pupils consolidate their understanding by explaining it verbally. Ask questions
throughout the lesson like, ‘How do you know that?’, ‘What do we do next?’ or
‘What are you thinking now?’ to encourage communication.

Check out an Example Lesson Plan

● English
● Maths
● Science
Make a copy of a blank lesson plan template

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5. Recommended resources

Making lesson resources from scratch can take a lot of time. The first port of
call for you should be the thousands of ready-made online resources. We’ve
collated some of the best sites out there so that you have everything you
need at your fingertips. We focused on the most popular subjects, but all
these sites have resources for most subjects we offer.

English Resources
Maths Resources
Science Resources

We also offer a resource library with resources for all areas – just select your
subject and have a read through.

It’s always good to have a few go-to sites to pull materials from. This will help
you adapt on the fly if something more pressing comes up or if you move
through an activity quicker than expected.

If there’s a useful website you’ve used that you’d like to add to our bank,
please let us know at support@mytutor.co.uk.

6. Planning a sequence of lessons after your first lesson

Planning a structure for your slot of lessons has several benefits:

● Your lessons will flow naturally
● It’ll be faster to plan individual lessons
● You’ll cover concepts in a logical order so that the pupil can apply past
knowledge to new areas

How?
A. Identify where you’ll start. Hopefully, you’ll have an idea of an initial
topic from the information provided by the school. If not, your first
session should be designed to diagnose this. See section 3.

Check out these topic lists for the different exam boards:

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 ● AQA/Edexcel/OCR GCSE English Language syllabus
● AQA/Edexcel/OCR GCSE English Literature syllabus
● AQA/Edexcel/OCR GCSE Maths syllabus
● AQA/Edexcel/OCR/WJEC GCSE Science Syllabus

💡 Make sure to only use these as a guide. These provide an overview of the
broad topic areas, but look at the exam board specifications for the detailed
subtopics within these to work through.

B. Check the spec. Once you’ve identified an initial topic focus using the
information provided by the school and that you’ve learned in your first
lesson, it’s time to consult the specification. This will help you make sure
you’re covering everything they need to know within these topics, and
also help you sequence the order of what you cover. Some
specifications link the topics together and offer ideas on where to bring
out different skills. You can access the different exam board websites
here.

C. Group the subtopics. Next, consider if it makes the most sense to work
through the subtopics in order by topic or to group them in a different
way like by skills or content.

D. Divide and conquer! Divide the subtopics up between the number of

lessons you have. If it looks like too much, then prioritise the topics
based on your pupil's goals and challenges that were discussed in your
first lesson.

💡 Top Tip: Be flexible. This plan is your starting point, and your pupil’s
needs might change as you work together and uncover their learning gaps.
You should expect to adapt your plan, but having the skeleton laid out at the
outset will save time and effort when you’re planning your lessons later.

7. Building rapport with your pupil

Check out what experienced tutor Josh has to say on this subject here.

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Why?
Building a rapport with your pupil will help them feel at ease during your
lessons. This will help you communicate clearly and openly, and build a level
of trust that means you’re both able to express concerns freely. Having a good
working relationship with your pupil will help ensure your lessons are
impactful and enjoyable!

How?
Rapport is a two-way connection – it’s not something you can create by
yourself. Follow these tips to build great rapport and guarantee successful
lessons:

1. Get to know pupils personally: Show genuine curiosity in who they are
as people and their passions and challenges. By discovering their
motivations and interests and even allowing a little off-topic chat when
the moment arises, it will help motivate pupils to engage, and let you
relate lessons to their interests where relevant.
2. Practise active listening: Smile, relax, and listen carefully to your pupil.
When your pupils speak, give them your full attention. Stay curious
about their thoughts and feelings, and ask follow-up questions to
demonstrate your genuine interest. Remember, listening is about
understanding, not just responding.
3. Mirror their behaviour: Adapt your approach based on your pupils'
personalities and energy levels. If a pupil is quiet and shy, be gentle and
supportive. If they're enthusiastic and engaged, match their excitement
to keep the learning experience enjoyable.

8. Handling tough situations

Occasionally you might encounter a tricky scenario when tutoring on the
Schools Programme. Here are some of our top tips on how to deal with it:

Issue #1: "My pupil isn't in the lesson space."

Don’t worry! Pupils might be late and sometimes can’t help missing a lesson
at the last minute (like at school!). Stay in the space for the full 55 minutes to
make sure you’re paid, and we'll keep an eye on things. MyTutor will talk to
the teacher if they miss too many lessons, so no need to get in touch.

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Issue #2: "My pupil doesn't want to use their mic or webcam."
Building trust is key! Keep your mic and cam on, and they might follow suit.
Make sure to handle shyness or tech issues with care.

Issue #3: "My pupil wants to end the lesson early."

Hold your ground! Commit to the full lesson duration. Leaving early leaves
them with nothing to do and teachers scratching their heads.

Issue #4: “I suddenly have a new pupil.”

Be flexible! Sometimes a school may decide a different pupil might engage
better and benefit from the remaining lessons. Check your pupil information
regularly so you can note any changes in topic or delivery style you may need
to make.

Issue #5: “My pupil isn’t available at the same time anymore.”
Fear not! Lessons are scheduled by the school, so unforeseen circumstances
can sometimes result in lessons being cancelled or rescheduled.
Watch out for an email from us detailing any updates. The subject line will be:
‘Important changes to your school lesson booking’. If you’re still available for
the new lesson times, nothing will change. If not, you’ll earn coins for your
completed lessons but a new tutor will pick up the remaining ones.
Check out the changes on your bookings page or head to ‘School
Opportunities’ and grab a new slot – there are always fresh opportunities
popping up!

Check out what experienced tutor Laxmi has to say on this subject here.

9. Using the lesson space

How does the lesson space work?

In the lesson space, you can see and speak with your pupil via live video and
audio. You both can use the lesson space to share documents, essays, and

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activities, and solve problems together using the interactive whiteboard to
write, type, and draw.

All of our lessons are recorded – meaning pupils can play them back as they
need. All recordings will be available 24 hours after the lesson has taken place,
and last for 90 days.

What do I need to use the lesson space?

You can run the lesson space directly from your Windows laptop or desktop
or an Apple computer. Never access or deliver your lesson from a mobile
phone or tablet!

Here’s a checklist to ensure that you’re ready for your first session.

First Session Checklist

You will need:

A reliable device. Use a Windows laptop or desktop computer, or an
Apple Macbook or iMac
A reasonable broadband connection. We recommend using a wired
connection if possible.
Make sure you have a speedy internet connection: at least 2MB/s
upload and 5 MB/s download speed.
You can check your internet speed here.
How can I improve my internet connection?
Headphones with a microphone

💡 Note: using Apple earphones on a Mac may cause an echo.

A webcam
Make sure you update its software regularly.
Keep your webcam on, even if your pupil's cam is off.
An updated web browser
For Windows PCs or laptops use Google Chrome, Edge, or Firefox as
your browser.

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 For Apple computers, use Chrome – it’s your best bet.

💡 Make sure to clear your cache regularly. Here are some cache-clearing tips.

Optional
● A writing tablet
○ Writing tablets allow tutors to handwrite in the lesson space. You
can purchase one for less than £20 on websites like Amazon.
○ If you have an iPad or iPhone, you can turn them into a writing
tablet using an app like these:
■ Air Display 3,
■ Apple SideCar
■ Astropad Studio
■ Procreate
■ Luna Display

How do I share documents in the lesson space?

You can upload documents for your pupil into the lesson space, making it
easy to mark past papers, complete worksheets and write essays. The best
format for documents is PDF, but Office files are also accepted (Word,
PowerPoint etc.)

To upload a file: Click Upload Image or PDF > to upload a file, or simply
drag a document into the space. When uploading multi-page documents,
you can choose which pages to upload. You can also choose if you want all
pages on one whiteboard, or spread out over multiple tabs.

Remember, you can also just paste images directly onto the whiteboard tabs
by using Ctrl+V.

How do I navigate my document?

● Use the right mouse button or the Move Canvas button in the top
left to drag the screen around.
● Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out or click the Zoom icon to
change the zoom aspect.

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💡 Top Tip! If you move away from the content on your screen and can’t find
it, click the Zoom icon at the top and Zoom To Fit. This will bring you to the
content.

How do I save my work?

● Save an image. Right-click on a tab and choose
Download as Image to save a whiteboard as a jpg.
● Export the space. Click the 3 dots in the top right
and Export to save the contents of the space as a zip file. This file can be
reloaded next lesson to populate the tabs as you left them –
click the + symbol in the top left and Import Zip.

💡 Note: you can only use this file format within the lesson space – you can’t
extract it as a normal file.

10. Lesson attendance

It's really important that you attend every lesson you have with your pupils.
Pupils learn best when they have one consistent tutor for all the lessons in
their slot. Continuity helps build a strong, trusting relationship, and means
tutors have in-depth knowledge of the pupil's needs. Missing a lesson can
knock a pupil's confidence (and possibly harm their progress), particularly if
they were initially nervous about working with MyTutor.

However, we know that uni life can be hectic and occasionally something
might crop up to prevent you from delivering a lesson. If you can’t attend,
follow the School Programme Tutor Cancellation Policy guidance. Before you
cancel, it’s important that you know our policy so read this carefully.

💡 Note: For more information on how we allocate school opportunities to

tutors, see this article.

How to cancel a Schools lesson

We ask that you give us as much notice as possible before cancelling. This
means we can find a good cover tutor for your pupil. If you want to cancel

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with less than 24 hours' notice, please reach out to the Support Team via Live
Chat.

If you’re cancelling with more than 24 hours’ notice:

1. Click on your Bookings tab and identify the lesson you wish to cancel.
2. Click the three dots next to 'view profile' and select 'cancel'.
3. A pop-up will appear which confirms the date and time of the lesson
you have requested to cancel. Select 'cancel lesson' to confirm the
cancellation.
4. Once you've cancelled the lesson, please immediately click through to
'submit lesson report'. Here, you can submit cover notes for your cover
tutor to use during the lesson. Please see our guidelines on what this
should look like.

11. Get tutoring!

You’re all set! We hope that you now feel prepared for your Schools lessons!

If there’s anything you think we missed, or that you’re still unclear about, get
in touch with us before your lesson using Live Chat. You can also get more
in-depth training in the MyTutor Academy or reach out to one of our more
experienced tutors in the MyTutor Tutor Community!

Good luck! We wish you all the best on the Schools Programme.

The MyTutor Team

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