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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Apologies, that should read 'conscientious'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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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.

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.