I have a child in my Year 2 class who is going to be absent for a number of weeks. A home tutor has been requested and I’ve been asked to get some work ready for him. I am not sure what I’m expected to supply. Much of the work he will be missing is stuff we haven’t covered before, so he will need some input first. Do I supply lesson plans, activities, what? How much time will the tutor spend there a day? And do I have to cover every subject?
The home tutor’s job is to ensure that the child, on returning to school, won’t have fallen so far behind that he can’t keep up with the rest of the class. The child’s circumstances and stamina may not allow the equivalent of a full school day’s study on each visit, but the tutor will offer the time the child can cope with.
Contact the tutor and arrange a meeting, and have as much information as possible ready to hand over. You should certainly offer the child’s IEP, if there is one, an indication of the levels at which you expect the child to be performing, the schemes of work for all major subjects, and any texts and resources you might be using. Agree a form of record keeping so that you know what the child has covered, and how effectively. Arrange for the tutor to feed back information about the child’s progress - weekly, if possible. If you can include the parents in this discussion, so much the better.
Your job is to let the tutor know as much as possible about the child, and what the rest of the class will be doing. Let the tutor decide how to work with the child - he or she will know what’s reasonable in the context.
