Pupil putting all the responsibility on me to gain good grades

[Whendothingsstarttoimprove]

Can anyone offer me any perspective/help with this?

I do part time tutoring and help a 12 year old girl with her maths. She very poor and really struggles. She’s told me that her teacher at school is a good teacher, but even though she asks for help a lot, he tends to ignore her hand up and go to others. She always asks to stay after the lesson for help, but told me she still doesn’t understand it.
When we go through things slowly together, she does end up understanding, but it feels like I’m teaching every concept from scratch.
She has tests at the end of each term and there are often up to twelve topics to cover within a few weeks -5-6 hours.
She did manage to get a C last time, but in the most recent test, she got an E. Comments she’s made feel like she’s expecting to get an A and it’s all my responsibility to get her to that, is this fair? When she showed me the E, she seemed angry at me
I can see without my help, she basically wouldn’t understand anything and these few lessons do make a big difference, however it’s very hard to teach her completely from scratch.
Should all the responsibility be on me?
With the other subjects we focus on, she now gets A’s & B’s in her tests.

Maybe she should reduce tutoring in other subjects and increase hours for maths?

Or, if set in school, ask to go down a set.

@TeenDivided They’re not in a set at school, it sounds like to me, the teacher is avoiding her a little as she doesn’t understand anything, should all the pressure therefore be on me?

She's 12... Have you spoken to her parents to discuss their expectations and whether you think they're realistic?

@TeenDivided We dedicated the majority of time to maths the last few weeks and when she’s with me she understands the concepts and gets in correct. She showed me the test results paper yesterday and we went through it and she got the answers right. She made some silly mistakes, but I’m beginning to feel a bit annoyed that she seems to be attributing all her marks to me and being angry when she gains a low mark

You need to speak to her parents and manage everyone's expectations.
Of course if you're basically teaching from scratch she won't get A's but I don't think A should be the goal it should be Improvement

Is she maybe more frustrated than angry?

It clearly isn't your responsibility. She does the tests.

@Whendothingsstarttoimprove ,

I think you need to have a discussion with her, in front of at least one parent, about what your responsibility is and what her responsibility is.

Ultimately, she needs to take some responsibility for her own learning and, if she is not prepared to do so or if her parents feel it is your job to get her a grade, I would politely decline to tutor her further.

Have you spoken to the parents and clarified the situation?
You will do your very best to go over everything she needs to cover, making sure she understands as much as possible, but the responsibility also lies with her teacher and her. Make it clear that maths doesn't seem to be her strong subject, an so a high grade is unrealistic, but you will do your best to support her to perform as well as she can?
Tutors can really help students, but not everyone is going to be able to understand/do well no matter how much help they get!

You need to get tough. If 6 hours of maths a week at school by her actual teacher isn't getting through to her, how can she blame you for 4 hours a month?

The biggest problem is that you can only work with what you're given. I hate to say it, but quite often it's the less able kids who also have less able parents, who think if they throw a load of money at tutoring their child will get top grades. It's like expecting a kid with zero coordination and zero fitness to become a tennis player because they get a lesson a week.

Taught a lovely (but dim) child 4 years ago. Mum has now paid for a private ADHD assessment. There's not an ounce of ADHD in her. She's just not that bright. Be interesting to see what happens when she starts on the medication let's just say that!

@TeenDivided Yesterday for example when she showed me the test, she said we didn’t cover X, we didn’t go over it again as it was a very simple concept and with so much to cover, I focused on the more challenging work. We then did examples of the sums she was talking about and she did it easily (she got it wrong in the test) She then said she wish she would have known that for the test, I told her it’s also her responsibility to go over things herself too. She’s also made a comment in the past about not covering one aspect and how her dad had to go through it with her. I said to her that it’s virtually impossible to teach the years maths curriculum from scratch in the hours we have, she wasn’t very happy, but I’m finding it too much now.
She’s a perfectionist and has worked hard to get good results in other areas

I had this once with a student of a similar age when I was much younger and didn't know how to set boundaries. I became much stricter since then outlining the purpose of tutoring with parents before taking a student on. I make it quite clear that I am not touching school homework and I am not helping to prepare for specific tests. I am here to increase understanding of the subject. They can take it or leave it.

I wonder if pre-teaching her might help? If the parents could liaise with school to find out what's coming up and then you cover it with her before she encounters it in class, the group teaching she's getting in school would confirm existing knowledge rather than introduce new concepts in a situation that sounds pretty stressful for her - no wonder she isn't retaining much.

Do you have to tutor her? She sounds hard work.

@brightyellowflower I tutor her for four hours per week, but not every session is maths, it’s often other homework or revision and some lessons are often missed too

Not wishing to insult you, but are you actually a maths teacher? You mentioned covering other subjects too. You talk about helping her rather than teaching her?

@Seeline I’m a qualified Primary teacher, not a maths teacher, no. I do teach her, the main work she has though is helping with her homework and with revision etc,

Bright** aww that's a bit mean calling the kid dim. My DD has just sat her GCSEs and battled with maths all her school life (no SEN or contributory factors) and has had a maths tutor every week for the past 3 years. Despite working like a Trojan I don't expect she'll set the results world on fire with her grade but it would really upset me to think her tutor would consider her dim.

She is 12! You're going to need to break this down for her (or her parents, if they've been telling her that tutor time = outcome)

@Flyhigher It provides a large amount of my income and I want to help her, but I’m considering perhaps not doing it from September onwards

@Legomania How would you approach this/what to say?

I am no teacher so not sure where to pitch it, but
a) explaining that you can't do the thinking for her

b) trying to give her a feel for what it is to grasp a concept and how that works in terms of building understanding. With my younger child I use the analogy of building a wall.

I can remember that even at GCSE level I didn't always know that I didn't grasp something

@Whendothingsstarttoimprove is the child at primary or secondary? I would definitely recommend an actual maths tutor for secondary level.

If you are having to teach her things from scratch that means she’s never going to get an A. You need to make that clear to both her and the parents - that you’re a tutor not a homework subsitute. She needs to to do homework and go over problems every single day.

@Leidenschaft24 She’s Year 7, I did actually recommend it for this year, but the mum said they’re very happy with me (I worked with her previously homeschooling as she had huge anxiety and wouldn’t go to school)
I think I will say for September she needs a Maths teacher, but I’m happy to carry on in other areas, I’m not sure they’ll keep me on though if they hire someone else too, but it seems the correct thing to do

There is a lot more going in here than your tutoring can fix. The school refusal? The need for handholding in every subject? The perfectionism?

She needs a more psychologically informed approach to learning in general.