Explore Learning Centres - Are they worth it?

[pepsi]

My DD7 had a visit from Explore at her school this week and has expressed an interest in going. Ive been had had a look at it this morning and everything looks lovely and the staff friendly and enthusiastic. It comes with an £89.00 per month price tag which is so much. I have booked her in for the free trial session. Has anyone got experience of these sessions? Their literature claims eg. rather than 6 months progress in Maths in 6 months your child can progress 12 months. It all sounds too good to be true.

[Corblimbea]

This may be unpopular but from our experience, explore learning worked well for our dyslexic daughter, but was rubbish for my younger son. He was not focused anc they only have a few staff to lots of kids so he was getting away with doing very little and we stopped after three months.

[EASA]

The Reading center offers excellent tutors, however, I am very concerned that the new assistant director, Hannah Porter, is only 18. Having such an important role in a center at such a young age is an incredibly irresponsible decision of Explore Learning to make. I can't trust a child to look after children and despite any experience Explore Learning may claim she has. It is inadequate. I feel many other parents would feel the same way. Furthermore, I feel I cannot trust Explore Learning with a child's education if they are choosing an 18-year-old to manage it. I hope many parents understand my view-point and take action.

[mayagreen]

I always was for learning languages as it develops the braing and increase the tolence as one gets more familiar with another culture. I study Italian in [url=fda-sanremo.com/]Italian language school[/url] now and wanna bring my child over there when she gets a bit older

[itsreallyhardtothinkofausernam]

Hey everyone,
I just happened to stumble across this page and wanted to give my experience as a Tutor at Explore Learning.

As someone else wrote, the initial period was wonderful, and the work was entirely manageable. However, over the following few months, I found that very little care or attention was given to the children's learning but all the concern was towards keeping them happy enough that they would continue their membership.

The basic structure is that 6 children, of vastly different abilities, from the age of 4 to 16 will be placed in one zone, and will work on the computer over the period of an hour. During this time, the tutor has to write a detailed note of what the child learnt during the session. Although in theory this is a good concept, these notes take around 8 minutes each, which leaves the tutor with very little time to actually teach the child.

In addition to this, the staff are primarily 16 - 18 years old. Of the 20 or so staff at my center, only 4 of them are 19 or over, with three of them being managers. This means that parents are paying almost £15 an hour, for a teenager to write them a note about two questions a child has done, and answer perhaps one question. Beyond this, most tutors are barely qualified, with most only just having completed their GCSEs. The hiring process is also not difficult, as most centres are in need of more tutors as the turnover is extremely high, in part due to the low wages and demanding work.

As I mentioned before, staff, especially managers are more focused on making money, as opposed to helping the children. This manifests itself in their feedback, when that say that the way session notes are written should suggest to the parent that the child is progressing even if there not. As well as this, almost every training session is comprised of selling the Explore brand and getting new members, as opposed to helping existing members. For instance, new tutors are given training on booking trials rather than on explaining methods to a child.

And in response to ExploreStu, as a staff memebr, you will recieve over 50% discount, which is not negligible, and brings the total cost to £5 an hour, which is that same as a childcare service, however it is unfair for you to comment on the affordability if you yourself are paying a discounted price. I very much doubt you have trialled a private or more qualified tutor as you would see a much greater impact and benefit for your children. in addition to this, the guilting method is one which to suggested to tutors in the trainings, that telling parents their child will fall behind if they don't come to Explore is a good sales strategy.

As said by many others, it will be far more beneficial for you to hire a private teacher if you wish to see and significant improvement from your child.

However, this is my personal opinion, from my experience of working as a tutor, and each child is different.

[Baghdad1976]

Hi there

I’m from Newcastle upon Tyne I been in one the there centre at Tesco stor But they ask me for 119£ would please tell me what part of the country you are ? And how many days in a week your child can attend? Thanks for your help.
Ali

[Naz588]

Having worked for Explore Learning, I would not recommend their services. Tutors receive 4 induction shifts and are then expected to manage a zone of 6 children independently. Managers are also targeted heavily on sales so will do all they can to get you in to the centre for a free trial and then sign you up. They are then targeted further on how many families keep their membership going meaning that even if your child isn't benefiting or reached their goal they won't tell you.

[Crimsonavenger]

I have a child that works for explore learning and know 2 others in the same position. They are very bright highly educated a-level students who will heading off to university this year. Just as a previous contributor suggested they look after 6 children at a time, have to support and monitor the Children and can build really strong relationships with the kids that help them learn.

The problem I have is that my child gets paid £4.90 an hour for that. All of her friends that work in local shops and businesses get paid about 50% more for filling shelves than many of the tutors at explore get for educating your children.

I have been there and heard the sales talk about the highly skilled and degree qualified tutors, but that will be the manager and certainly not the normal tutor staff who in my experience will usually be young people being paid what in my opinion are exploitative wages. My own child work shifts straight from school until 8 o'clock in the evening and after paying the train fair is left with about £10 for all her hard work.

If you are considering explore learning then ask the questions, who will actually be teaching your children and how much is explore learning paying them to do that. I think that all employers can be judged on how well they treat their own staff... But of course you can make those judgements for yourself.

[nicki129]

My daughter has been going to Explore Learning for a few years and she loves it. The work she does with her tutor is national curriculum work and her teacher has seen a big improvement in her maths. She works on the computer for her maths which means that the work she does excites her. The price is very reasonable and works out cheaper than a one to one tutor. She gets lots of attention and help when she is stuck and also has time to work independently. Her teacher has said that she is now able to work well in the classroom too. The tutors are all trained in national curriculum concepts and really engage the children. We have recommended lots of friends to explore and they love it too. It's a small price to pay for the improvements that my daughter has made.

[nicki129]

My daughter has been going to Explore Learning for a few years and she loves it. The work she does with her tutor is national curriculum work and her teacher has seen a big improvement in her maths. She works on the computer for her maths which means that the work she does excites her. The price is very reasonable and works out cheaper than a one to one tutor. She gets lots of attention and help when she is stuck and also has time to work independently. Her teacher has said that she is now able to work well in the classroom too. The tutors are all trained in national curriculum concepts and really engage the children. We have recommended lots of friends to explore and they love it too. It's a small price to pay for the improvements that my daughter has made.

[Eleanor12]

Apologies, that should read 'conscientious'

[Eleanor12]

Hi,

I realise this thread is old, but I wanted to weigh in with my opinion on Explore Learning, tuition centres and private tutoring in general.

I am a private tutor and have been for 4 years. I am 21 years old, achieved straight A/A*'s at GCSE and 4A's at A Level, including English Literature and History. I do not have any formal teaching qualifications or a degree. I am an extremely conscientiousness tutor and can proudly say that all of my students have improved greatly in both their grades and confidence. The majority of my tutees come from recommendation/word of mouth and in the past year I was hired as an English, Maths and History teacher at an independent school.

My point in writing the above is that I feel it is important not to tarnish all 'young people' or those without formal teaching qualifications as incapable of teaching. That being said, I am sure there are young people hired by these tuition centres who are not as conscientiousness as I would be.

Now that's out of the way, I'm going to give my thoughts on Explore Learning. I have had experience with Explore Learning as a potential tutor and turned down the opportunity to work for them. I decided against working for Explore Learning because I feel it is a lot of smoke and mirrors and I hesitate to use the word, but con.

Explore Learning is not 1-1 tuition and when I visited my local centre I can only describe it as chaotic. Tutors had not been instructed or trained properly and I witnessed children sitting for 10-15 minutes before receiving help. The other thing I observed is that as it is a computer based system, some children would simply skip through questions they did not understand to get a game. There was no system in place to prevent children from doing this. Children would skip through loads of questions and their tutor would be none the wiser.

Explore Learning, in my opinion, is not a credible teaching establishment. If you are looking for somewhere to keep your children occupied whilst you do your shopping in Sainsbury's then Explore Learning is great. If you are looking for somewhere that will help or stretch your child academically, not so great.

[supermom123]

I have to agree with others that explore learning is crowded, not completely academic, and expensive. However, my biggest issue with the centre was the lack of qualified teachers! The tutors are basically underpaid TAs or students who simply like working with kids. Disgruntled employees don't necessarily teach well even if they like your child.

I tried KUMON as well but again, quality teachers are hard to find I must admit. Very recently, I came across Licensed Tutors in Woking who were exactly what I was looking for: qualified staff, small class sizes, report cards, and communication with teachers. They are a small start up company and so far, have delivered what they promise. If you live in Woking or surrounding areas, they are worth looking into. I love the fact that they liaise with school teachers to boost grades. Prices are reasonable as well...about 10 pounds an hour...

Only downside is that they run every Saturday because they have teaching posts during the weekdays.

[Teacuptravells]

Good lord a tutoring centre after school for a 5 year old :(

[PettsWoodParadise]

Prices have obviously gone up. £150 pm in our local centre for the 11+ course which meant one 11+ session a week plus one other maths or English session. It was just too noisy and disruptive for our daughter, 24 kids in a room the size of our living room in pods of six for an hour - all asking questions and the computers often not working. the teachers were mostly dedicated but a mixed bunch, some better than others, I liked the regular parents evening idea, but our daughter just didn't like it there and it was cheaper (and calmer) to get a tutor at £30 an hour one to one once a week. For noise levels we are booked in for some mock exams so DD isn't totally lulled into a quiet zone ;). We gave Explore Learning a few months. I think the concept is good, but won't suit every child. My daughter found a lot of the cheering gimmicky and she didn't need a confidence boost as she had that in spades already.

[gabby305]

Both my children attend an Explore Learning Centre in Merton. My daughter Emily has been a member for two years and my son Harry has recently started attending too I would honestly reccomened them to anyone. I pay just under £200 per month for both the children and I think it is worth the money.
During the two years I have seen Emily's confidence soar and we have seen a huge improvement at home and in school. Emily had a hearing problem when she started school, and by the end of reception was hugely behind in her phonics as a result. Her confidence was so low and she would cry and and throw tantrums about going to school. I was told about explore learning by a friend and to be honest I was initially unsure about the computer work, but willing to give it a try as it seemed like a fun and happy enviroment. I even attended an open session with my husband where we were able to look at the programmes in detail- they are brilliant- really interactive and engaging! From my understanding the computers are used to tailor the work to the childrens level and it is the tutors who are doing the teaching! Both Emily and Harry also do written work during their sessions- although being 5 harry's is mainly handwriting practise. My advice to anyone looking into tuition is to take your child down for a taster session and see for yourself before making any decisions.

[Singularity]

I realise this discussion has been ongoing for years, but hopefully someone will still be reading this.

I'm a tutor at Explore and I've been responsible for running the Entrance Exams/11+ additional content sessions for a while now. First off, I don't want to let my involvement with Explore Learning make me biased - I'll be as fair as I can be, given my experiences. I'm not here to sell the company.

If you're wondering whether or not to send your child to Explore, the best thing you can do is try an initial session - they're free, and they give children the exact experience they would get as a member. Considering it doesn't cost anything, there's no harm in going along to see for yourself what it's like. Your opinion on what's best for your child is more relevant to you than anyone else's.

Yes, we have a few teenagers in our centre (I myself am 18) however that doesn't mean that we're incapable of tutoring effectively. I won't deny, being a full fledged independent tutor is useful - you'll have a lot of experience teaching children and will have a lot of insight into how they learn. But there are also pros to being a younger tutor. Nobody knows more about how to prepare for exams than those who are still sitting them in college and university and have attained high grades in them in recent years. That also applies to the curriculum - tutors who are still learners will be as accustomed to the current curriculum as the children they teach are. They are often in a very unique position to help others with the topics that have barely changed since they themselves we taught.

I feel quite hurt by some of the sweeping, negative comments made regarding teenagers teaching children, suggesting we don't know anything, or that we don't have the children's welfare and best interests in mind. Although I cannot say this for every teenager working at Explore, I know for a fact that everyone I work with is keen and devoted to providing the best teaching standards we can. I tutor children in the same manner in which I would expect to be taught myself. Whenever a child struggles to grasp a concept, we can easily talk through other methods and ideas (even those we found to be useful when we were learning the topic) and we have a unique ability to explain an approach that is different to that which children are taught in school.

As I teach the additional content sessions for Entrance Exams/11+, I'm also responsible for talking to parents about how their child is coping with the work. I mark homework and organise the activities the children do as part of the lesson. I always keep note of how individual learners react to certain tasks (group work, homework, practice tests, etc.) and I use this to feed back to parents on how best they could reinforce teaching at home. As far as I'm concerned, this specialised teaching approach has been well-received by parents, and it's useful for building a good relationship with children - something which is helped by the smaller age gap between some tutors and learners. It makes for a more exciting, friendly environment when the children know you and you know them.

Again, this isn't me trying to sell the company. As I mentioned earlier, your opinion is what matters, not mine - which is why you should attend initial sessions to gather more information for yourself to make an informed decision. However, I did feel as though some of the comments made regarding the quality of teaching due to young tutors were very sweeping and, as such, unreliable.

Thanks for reading!

[town59]

Both my children went to our local centre, reluctantly. It did help but they didn't enjoy it and they didn't stick it for long. The elder one then went to work there after GCSEs as it seemed a suitable job for a bright kid who didn't appreciate waitressing! The money was bad but she was assured it would go up to a reasonable level….hmmm.

In our local centre the standard of tutors is high - my offspring is extremely conscientious and is very committed to the children. She has A GCSES and A English A level and many of the others have equally good grades - but I do notice that the the tutors tend to be maths based and that the number who are very very good on the literacy side is lower. My daughter is an English pedant - very particular about grammar and spelling. She has been criticised by the centre for picking up on the other tutors mistakes in spelling and grammar which I feel is unfair.

My gripe is that it may be a great and highly lucrative business model but that the tutors are exploited - the wages for what they do are very very low and they are expected to be very "corporate" for want of a better term. Yes, they are young but they love what they do and most are very good indeed at it. They deserve more than a minimum wage. I do feel they have more insight into the kids' school experiences and problems than older tutors might. The tutors are very high calibre students and at least in our local centre, care very deeply about the children and their progress. My daughter keeps working there because she has bonds with kids that she feels benefit from her help, not for the pitifully low wages.

It seems to be the managers who are more concerned about the money than the clients - I was very put off by one trying to hard sell Succeed in Secondary to me for my younger child, who is already doing just that! She was only there for a maths boost and we moved to a private tutor rathe quickly (cheaper as we only go when she needs help).

The sooner my elder one leaves the happier I will be. She was on minimum wage for an under 18 when she started (at 17) and earned a few increments for various bits of extra training and achievement - but as soon as she hit 18 she was back on minimum for that age, they wouldn't add on the "extras" she had already earned!

All in all, not a big fan of this organisation.

[mnistooaddictive]

My bad opinion is not ill informed, and why did you have to post this on two threads. Your lack of maturity and experience shined through your whole post. Of course you are telling us they are great - your income depends on people booking it.

[Janacek]

We went to Explore as our grade 1 osfted primary was sadly lacking in numeracy and literacy. Forget the hour they were supposed to spend on each. My sons were planting 4 rows of 4 trees to learn 4 times table. I applaud the practical learning but a little time consuming !
The tutors were fantastic (Walton branch) and the boys came on in leaps and bounds, both enthused by the computer learning. It's not cheap but no tutoring is. The bigger question is why are we having to do this ? I went to a state primary in a rough area of Yorkshire 40 years ago. I received a good education. This was not our experience of primary and so now we are paying private fees. We are not rich and do without holidays and extras. I felt Explore was good but only plugging gaps left by inadequate teaching at primary.

[Mummyoftheyear]

I'm a tutor. Not there. For myself.
I would never send him to a computer-based learning centre.

I'd echo the advice above of working with your child at home - unless, despite your ability to do so, your child won't respond positively to your input.. and it ends up in a negative spiral/ row.

For those who are set upon using computer-based learning programmes, I do particularly like Maths Whizz. I may look into using it as a motivational learning tool for my son.

However, I'd not use a computer-based tuition service with tutors who can't spell or punctuate.

[yoyo7]

Feel I need to add my 2 pence worth as an experienced, qualified teacher and owner of a tuition centre who has had many students arrive after spending months (and years!) at Explore with limited gains in progress...

No doubt the experience appears to be a really fun way to spend a few hours during the week - and can't fault that!

Educationally, may work for some but there are many better options out there... forget computers making the decisions, in my view, can't beat the eye of a trained professional who can move students forward - don't underestimate that! :) It's the choice of work (learning programme) which will make all of the difference and in my opinion this cannot come from some 'pre-set', 'intuitive' computer programme. Variety is the key - not an overreliance on using one computer programme which you could buy for home use anyway. Ideally, a variety of carefully thought out activities (computer and paperbased) addressing individual needs followed up by some targeted weekly homework to consolidate learning! Get the kids writing on paper (at least for some of the time) if they need English support -as that is what they are expected to do at school!

It has been my experience that parents seem to buy into the clever marketing (they are a business of course) and fail to understand that their child needs a person who really understands learning and who is at the top of their game. Not all teachers are good teachers - I have met many who shouldn't be out there. Explore tutors are probably very friendly and some of them very motivated as well - this is not enough in my view. The 'inspiring' staff at Explore (with all the training in the world) could never work in my centre - as our parents expect and deserve more for their hard earned money. Yes, Explore tutors can teach the methods no doubt, but can they really identify the gaps in learning and choose an appropriate resource in order to address the gap? Explore, in my view, is simply a one size fits all approach.

Kids still need to be kids and I think learning should be fun. I think Explore ticks that box but I would recommend parents would do better finding a place which ticks far more boxes -especially in terms of providing a truly individualised approach which can still give kids all the rewards and fun along the way. The ratio of 6 to 1 could never be an option in our centre. Why? Not enough personalised attention - too many for even the best teachers to genuniely support the individual. If you decide to enrol your child at Explore, take a closer look and trust your own instinct with regards to their progress - forget the computer reports. Just my opinion :)

[WansteadG]

go by word of mouth - my son was tutored by an ex teacher as he was falling behind in maths as his music made him miss 20% of maths each week. We paid £20 hr for this - thankfully he is now in year 9 and still in the top set for maths

[darl2283]

Spot on Swede! I have had to pick up the pieces when parents have been given totally false information about their child's National Curriculum levels that are computer generated. I was so incensed I marched down to my local Sainsburys and complained. It got escalated up to Explore Leaning HQ but I got nowhere.
Are they worth it? Yes if you can afford £90 to keep your child entertained whilst you shop but if you are expecting to advance their learning then keep your money firmly in your pocket!