Guest Post by John Yeo of Learning Out Of The Box

John refers to the educators in his centers as Math Coaches instead of Math Tuition Teachers. Having established a center to uplift primary school students’ grades in Math, this differentiation helps to set Learning Out Of The Box apart in their methods and in the value that they deliver.

A P5 boy, who hated math, visited our center with his mother.

But he sure did not want to come.

It took his mother a good ten-minute to convince him to enter.

The boy had set in his mind that he hated Math. He only wanted to play soccer.

He did not see the point in studying Math, even with his mother’s requests.

Somehow, he agreed to join our sessions. Maybe he made a deal with his mother to be able to play soccer after.

Whatever it was, we were happy to have him.

Fast forward three months, he scored his first B in Math. (He had been failing since P3!)

His mother was shocked at his results. She had employed a home tutor who had been tutoring her son for the past 3 years. He never got past 50 marks.

“All his tutor gave him was just assessment books and more assessment books. I do not know how to teach so I believed his math tutor. But you are different. You gave him his self-confidence back. Now he can even do his math homework without me nagging at him.”

This is THE difference between math tuition and math coaching.

Traditional math tutors generally just go through the math questions with the students.

“You don’t know how to do this question. I teach you how.”

(Rinse and repeat)

But math coaches put at least 5 times more effort and time.

We first befriend the child, understand his or her weakness and strength in Math, find out why he or she dislikes math and then develop a plan to work together using problem sums concepts.

Compared to normal math tutoring, math coaching is harder and requires more energy, patience, and empathy. (This is why most tutors prefer not to go by this route. They just give questions and more questions.)

When I started Learning Out Of The Box, I didn’t want to go down this route. I had already been a tutor in my younger days, and I was unsatisfied with the traditional way of teaching. I wanted to offer parents a solution that would relieve them of the stresses they have – by focusing on giving their children a proven method of studying and excelling at Math.

It is this niche that has set us apart in the years we have been around. Parents often give us feedback that they have seen their kids transform from Math Haters to Math Lovers after sessions with us. We also discuss our methodologies with parents so they can carry on with our concepts of teaching at home – whenever their child needs extra guidance.

I learned how to make Learning Out Of The Box stand out by speaking with many business owners and parents. I researched my audience and peers early on to understand what the market needed and lacked – it is essentially what any entrepreneur should do before starting up a business.

In one of these examples of how our niche has helped students, a P4 girl attended our math coaching programme just for 2 months. Her marks jumped from 60+ to 80+.

She was so happy.

Her mom was shocked because her ex-tutor (who self-proclaimed himself to be the top math tutor in Singapore) was not able to help the girl move past the 60-mark after so many years.

But we could do it within 2 months.

So, what did we do differently?

We realised the girl hated math.

But she wanted to do well. Just that she felt that learning math was boring to her.

What we did was to use game-based learning to reignite her interest.

We also gave her 3 questions as homework for a start. (I know most parents would feel 3 is too little.)

Even the girl’s mommy was skeptical at first.

“Just 3 questions?”

Soon, the mom realised why we did this.

Just after the first lesson, the girl got so motivated that she did 4 questions (instead of the 3 we gave her.)

From then on, she became a self-motivated learner and did more questions by herself.

Her mother had never seen her so motivated before.

Both mother and daughter were convinced that our math coaching programme is totally different from math tuition.

We motivated the girl to self-discover her reason to learn math.

What her ex-tutor did was just give her more questions. (Which she hated)

When we last checked in with this girl’s mother, we were told that the girl is so motivated to study, she doesn’t need a tutor anymore. That is what we do as Math Coaches – we help your child become self-directed learners. And we know this is what most parents want.

So, if you are a mother who wants your child to only do questions after questions (most children get bored and eventually shut off), it is okay to look for a tutor.

However, if you are a parent who wants your child to enjoy learning math so that eventually she can learn to be self-motivated, look for a math coaching programme. It is the best way for your child to achieve good grades in PSLE Math.

To find out if our math coaching programme can help your child, you can sign up for our free math consultation today – https://www.learningoutofthebox.org/.

My book is out. Get your copy here!