Tutoring Neurodiverse
Students
At BTA, we cater to all students and strive to ensure that we provide the approaches and structures most suited to your child. To that end, our tutors are trained to teach neurodiverse students, equipping them with an array of tools and strategies to best engage with and teach every student.
This training is based on our tutors’ experiences and the perspectives they have found to be most helpful for their students, and includes ways tutors can structure lessons to best benefit students, to different activities to suit student’s most productive learning approaches.
As part of our enrolment form, we have a section dedicated to neurodiversity and best learning approaches. If you wish to communicate this information with us, this will be passed onto your child’s tutor, so that they will be informed and prepared for their lessons.
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It is important to note that whilst BTA tutors undergo training on tutoring neurodiverse students, they are not trained to identify or diagnose students with neurodiverse needs. We strongly recommend you seek the advice of your General Practitioner, clinical psychologist and/or occupational therapist prior to commencing tutoring with us if you are concerned about your child’s neurodiverse learning needs.
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What does it mean to have a learning difficulty or disability?
The education syllabus is constructed in a way that only works effectively for a specific demographic of students. Students with learning disabilities such as ADHD and dyslexia are more likely to struggle in school because of these institutional barriers.
This is called the ‘social model’ of disability: the idea that neurodiverse students are completely capable of doing well, but barriers including restricted access to resources, systemic exclusion and prejudice prevent the student from reaching their full potential.
It is our responsibility as tutors to provide a sufficient and engaging learning environment that allows neurodiverse students to learn safely and comfortable at their own pace and speed.
What it does mean
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Students with learning disabilities are completely capable of learning. The way we structure lessons and content will impact the student's ability to learn.
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Students with learning disabilities usually try hard to meet the level of their peers.
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We need to engage neurodiverse students in different, multisensory ways.
What it does not mean
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Students with learning disabilities have a limited capacity to learn.
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Students with learning disabilities just need to try harder.
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Students just need to get better at learning like the other students.
Learning Disability
Our Role as Tutors
For neurodiverse students, having someone who they can trust to raise issues with is very important. The student needs to be confident that if they share with a tutor that they are struggling to understand something, this will be met with empathy rather than ridicule or disbelief.
Fostering trust and confidence is key to creating a safe environment where the student feels comfortable sharing what they do not know and what they struggle with, so we as tutors can best help them improve and know where to focus our attention.