A COVID ‘pivot’ career change by Frenchs Forest mother of three Linda O’Hare has turned out to be her smartest move yet.
Linda’s business – Tutor Doctor Northern Beaches – has helped scores of local students from Year 3 to Year 12 achieve their greater potential across a wide range of subjects, at the same time developing better study habits and, most importantly, immensely improved confidence and self-esteem.
Tutor Doctor employs more than 50 local tutors and devotes a great deal of time to assess a student’s learning and study needs before then assigning the tutor that makes the best match.
“My tutors go through a rigorous interview and onboarding process,” Linda says. “Only about 10 percent of applicants succeed and are offered a role. As for matching, I match on the tutor’s capability – tutors tend to specialise in either primary, high school or HSC. I then match tutors with students on the basis of personality style and gender.
“And we offer not just tutoring across multiple subjects but also study skills, exam preparation, organisation and planning.”
All tutoring is done at the student’s home, all of Linda’s tutors hold a Working With Children Check (WWCC), and it is a requirement that parents are at home during the tutoring session.
“If the home environment is unsuitable due to small spaces … animals .. other young children … then we also tutor at the library – which is most common for high school students who will stop at their local library on the way home from school.”
Linda says some of the most common subjects where tutors are in demand are Maths, English, organisation and planning and any HSC subject. And it is common for parents to be worried about a lack of effort or confidence.
“Students who find a subject difficult naturally avoid it and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more they ignore it, the worse they do. If a student has the skills and confidence to practice that topic outside of the tutoring session, the better they will do overall.
“So our tutors provide the confidence and skills to practice more and thereby setting students up to do the best they can in each subject.”
Linda says there has been increasing demand since she began Tutor Doctor Northern Beaches four years ago.
“We have seen a large increase in demand for students with ADHD and Maths.
“Students with ADHD struggle to focus in a busy classroom and particularly benefit from personal attention. There is also a current shortage of Maths teachers so I have many parents calling concerned about their child’s ability to keep up with the Maths curriculum.
“We also have many students with other learning differences such as ASD, dyslexia and physical disabilities. These students have individualised requirements that are difficult for teachers to meet in a classroom, so working with a tutor, at home, one-on-one, enables learning at the style and pace that works for them.”
And there seems no doubt that Linda’s process and her team of tutors are working wonders.
“The most rewarding part of my job is speaking to parents whose children have soared as a result of tutoring. I’ve had mums crying with gratitude at HSC results … or about their child with a phobia of maths now working with confidence and ease – and now in the extension class!”
In her previous professional life, Linda worked 9-to-5 in the city, in corporate strategy, but after COVID prompted a lifestyle change she began working for herself.
Linda has three children of her own, in years 6, 10 and 12, who all have tutoring.
“Two of my children are very grateful and look forward to their sessions – and I have one reluctant student who hates the idea of being tutored each week … but will acknowledge after each session that it was actually quite useful.
“I was a good student but in hindsight if I’d had a personal tutor to help guide me through understanding content, homework, assessments and study plans, I think would have been much better”
Contact Linda at Tutor Doctor Northern Beaches on
02 910 0000 or click here for more details.
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