Tutor for Year 6 boy with mild cognitive delay

[MaristellaAlp]

Hi, my son is starting Year 6 in our local mainstream school. He has special needs (S&L difficulties and cognitive delays in certain areas). We are looking for an in-person tutor who can support him with Maths and English. Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations? We are based in North London (Archway/ Highgate).

We are keen to find a person with patience and creativity who can engage positively with our son and is able to build enthusiasm around these subjects. It is not crucial to us that this person is highly qualified or has specific SEN qualifications, but it is crucial that they have extensive experience of working with kids who have similar difficulties with digesting abstract concepts.

I look forward to hearing any recommendation. Thank you!

You don’t say quite what your son’s cognitive difficulties are but it is possible that a dyslexia/dyscalculia tutor might be able to help. You can find one at https://www.patoss-dyslexia.org/tutor-index-landing

Thank you for your reply, He has global development delay and S&L disorder.

In that case I'd be looking at either a private speech therapist or an autism tutor. The two websites below look to be good starting points
https://www.sensationaltutors.co.uk/autism/
https://autismtutors.org/

Hi, thank you for these suggestions. Can anyone recommend a specific tutor?

What are you hoping the tutor will achieve? Are you looking for success in SATs ( in which case why?) or to get him into a particular school? Are you looking for a tutor to support him long term or just for Y6?

I have worked with SEN children for over 30 years, SENCo for 20 and would argue that a child with the profile of your son shouldn’t be expected to spend the day at school, where he’s likely working to full capacity, and then spend more learning time with a tutor out of school. I’m assuming he has lots of intervention work as per his EHCP within the school day. Instead, I would be encouraging him to take part in after school activities such as Scouts, sports clubs or perhaps a drama group that is inclusive of children with SEN.

Hi, thank you both for your replies.

My son will not be able to take the SATs or any other exam in the near future. He is 2/3 years behind his peers in maths and English. I’m looking for a tutor who can help with to digest/ consolidate KS1/2 concepts. I don’t have unrealistic expectations of what a tutor can achieve with him, just some extra help (likely during the weekend) delivered in a gentle (not stressful) way. Ideally, I would like to find a person who can support him in the long term, when he moves to secondary school.

I've found it's really hard to find in-person tutors in London these days. So I would start with places like Gumtree (I know, seems unlikely but we found a great tutor there, but she has since moved online.)

I wonder if what you want is a really good classroom assistant who does this work on the side. In that case, I would just ask around at the school or have a word with a teaching assistant in the playground to see if they know anyone who would suit or would like the extra work.

So many tutors now are much more geared towards performance on exams than catching up, so I'd target those much more likely to have worked with the latter.

Good luck!

Hi, thanks for your suggestion, I’m definitely going to have a look at Gumtree and ask around at school.