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.

Does she really get 6 hours per week at school? My DD gets just over 3 hours per week.

But no, of course it isn't all your responsibility. It does sound like she is trying hard. Are her parents putting a lot of pressure on her? How old is she?

One way you can help transfer the onus back on to her is to create RAG (Red Amber Green) sheets. Get her to identify the areas of weakness and where she feels confident.

Sorry, I see she is 12 the same age as my DD.

Or maybe maths just isn’t her subject like it wasn’t mine?! some children are more skilled and adept at English lit and language like I was.

Mine also wasn’t helped by the fact my form teacher at age 9 hated me as I couldn’t catch a ball (I wore glasses due to a corrected squint) and maths was her favourite subject so she’d shout and bully me and put me off maths for life. I don’t think I’m ND either.

Of course it’s not your fault. Teachers aren’t magicians or miracle workers.

Well, that bit yes. You are her tutor, so you need to explain everything, till she understands it. As she is eventually getting it, could she just have a very specific way you need o teach her? Like visually? Practical examples? Have you found out a pattern on at which point she gets you?
Now, her marks are up to her. How much she practices. Not inly up to you.
She sounds like she needs more maths time.

How does she get to complain about you? Is that her parents talking? You can't make a child who finds maths a challenge an A student. She may never be great at maths hopefully she will do well enough with tutoring that it doesn't affect her prospects, but if she wants a job that needs great maths it's probably not going to happen, it gets much more difficult.

Although if it's actually arithmetic she finds difficult she may be OK with more complex concepts.

Has she been tested for dyscalcula? It sounds like she's not processing the information, especially if she's achieving in other subjects.

Sounds like your DD has overcome so much and done so well. It's good to hear her school have been supportive. You must be very proud of her.

If it was just she struggled with maths I'd agree but there's other things at play too. Reading even that she complained about the cleaner moving her stuff, that's likely less her being a brat but not liking her stuff in different places or moved out of a specific order. The school avoidance, feeling singled out by the teacher and being sensitive. Thinking back actually another thing is the fact she says she should have been told what would come up. It's very typical for autistic people to be literal. If you say study xyz as that will come up on the test but don't think to mention ABC will be on it because that's in your mind obvious, to an autistic person who thinks literally they may be thrown by ABC being there because they were only expecting xyz, inf act they may be upset as she was because in her mind if her tutor knew ABC could be on the test they should have told her. There can't really be assumptions or implications.
Now as an adult in my 30s, I still get caught out by this. I am late diagnosed so I literally had to teach myself this understanding from my interactions with people but I still get caught out.

One of the difficult things with how autism presents in girls is that it's often in social ways and is seen as bratty or a moral failing. Girls learn to mask much better and much earlier than boys too so it can be often missed but I see so many signs in this, it's definitely not just that she struggles with maths.

OP have you thought of assigning her work on an online tool to practice. Something like Seneca?

Thanks everyone, think i‘m going to knock it on the head after today.
I texted to double check for the summer holidays if days would remain the same etc as my other families informed me ages ago of plans, she said no tutoring over summer. Where we are that works out at 12 weeks no pay, three months of the year. I’d prefer to go with someone more reliable

Many people are coming to some quite extreme conclusions on very little info.

She might have asn, but she might just be spoiled and rude. Either are possible.

Equally, she might have slow processing and almost certainly has poor working memory (I think that is a strand that runs across most who struggle in Maths). If she got a C in a test, dyscalculia is unlikely, although if she is in an aggressive pushy school, the tests might just be too hard (again, without seeing the material, it is impossible to know).

But, to the point, most teachers know that the best they can do is lift a pupil a couple of grades. So, with great teaching, you might raise an E to a C or a D to a B, although a C to an A is much harder.

Maths is like a language or an instrument; it needs regular practice. For those without a natural ‘bent’ for it, that is doubly important. For every hour of tuition, she should be practising graded examples for another hour; there are tons of online resources available.

So, as I said above, if you want to carry on tutoring her, she and her parents need to agree to this if they want her to make a meaningful improvement.

She started at an E in September, then the next test was a D and then a C. I was over the moon about the C as this was a huge improvement for her, she wasn’t that happy. Then this end of year test, so covering everything from the year was back down to an E, it was disappointing

I have suspected ASD too and mentioned to her mum when she was off school, her anxiety was sky high, she’s much better now, but I think may be on anti anxiety tablets or something has been given as it was a big change. She does have tics though and still has issues with food, not as bad as before when she couldn’t eat and constantly had nausea and was scared of being sick. She’s done brilliantly and come a long way

@Whendothingsstarttoimprove ,

‘Then this end of year test, so covering everything from the year was back down to an E, it was disappointing’.

It is really common for weaker students, with help and work, to be able to improve topic test results, but far harder to get the learning to stick for larger summative examinations.

What is popular now, and I think effective, is quiz starters revisiting former learning. If you decide to carry on with her, that might well be worth trying.

As someone who loves maths, I do find it quite depressing that people are forced to learn and take exams in maths that they don’t really understand but just learn as a series of techniques, with lots of practice. However, it is possible to get really quite weak students 6s and 7s at GCSE if they put the work in. One year later, though, 90% of it will be gone. It remains debatable whether that hoop is worth getting young people to jump through…

@Riversideandrelax thanks , yes I am very proud if her. Whatever her GCSE results end up being I know she has worked hard this past year and has had to overcome far more than any child should have to in life.

No matter what there will be a next step for her. I wish her luck.

Whendothingsstarttoimprove,

Could she be discalculate? Does she understand when she is with you, or not at all?
It is not as well understood as dyslexia.

It sounds like she would benefit from some extra tuition specifically in maths with a maths tutor? I would speak to her parents and explain that you're not going to be able to cover the whole maths curriculum in the hours you've got with her at the moment.

@Noseybookworm I’m able to teach the work no problem

Yes you need to.
And you should pass on what she said about school so they can advocate for her.

She needs to be doing revision and practice and homework too

She needs a ks3/4 specialist tutor, in fact, she needs several - not a primary school teacher.

Even at y8 the stuff they're learning is waaaay beyond year 6 - the way each subject is taught, the progression to GCSE level. Not just Maths, but even developing how to answer more complex questions. For 4 hours a week I assume the parents are paying top whack for tutoring and if not then You're doing everyone a disservice.

Do her - and them - a favour and outline exactly what you CAN help her with (and manage everyone's expectations about outcomes), and point them in the direction of subject specialist tutors appropriate to her key stage.

It really isn't appropriate for a non-subject-specialist to be tutoring at KS3/4 and charging full price (upwards of £35ph where I am).

Retired teacher here.
The dialogue should not be between you and the pupil!
It should be a regular 3 way dialogue with you, the parents and the pupil.
when she showed you the E grade and ‘seemed angry’ why didn’t you challenge her and ask her to explain her anger? An 11 year old is not in charge.
She needs to be given a realistic target. It’s ridiculous that she is expecting A for maths.
Also, you are doing homework with her which is fine but the parents need to be aware that much of your time is spent as 1-2-1 homework club.

1. set up a meeting with parents and the pupil
2. set up a WhatsApp group for you, the parents and the girl.
3. report back after every lesson. So that you are not doing extra work for nothing (tutoring is hard) maybe take the last 10 minutes of each lesson and involve the girl - ‘ok ,,Sally this is what I am going to say to your parents.’

what do you think,OP? I have other ideas 😊