A week in the life…

…of a childminding, tutoring, parent!

I thought it would be fun to show you all one of my typical working weeks!

My working week begins on a Tuesday, so I’ll start there and end on Monday.

Tuesday

Like all of my days, I’m usually woken at anytime between 6:00 and 6:40am (If we’re lucky!) by Amala (she’s 2.5 years old) and we get ready for the day and have breakfast, maybe complete a puzzle or two and then I head up to the office. I start work on Tuesday bright and early, with a 45 minute 1:1 lesson at 7:40am. I actually love teaching my early morning lessons! It’s also good because opening up these slots has enabled me to whittle down my waiting list a bit.

After my first 1:1 of the day, I have a five minute break (during this time I set the homework and upload screen shots of the lesson on to Google Classroom. If I have a spare minute or two, I’ll set up the next week’s lesson with any work we didn’t cover in that lesson, whilst it’s fresh in my mind).

At 8:30am I have a private 2:1 Year 7 maths lesson. Prior to becoming a private tutor, I had only taught maths up to Year 6, and it was a little daunting initially, but I actually adore this lesson! I’ve taught both participants for about 2 years so know them really well. I have also found that teaching Year 7 maths has been really valuable for improving my teaching, as I know exactly where Year 5 and 6 children need to be and what we are aiming for.

It’s also fun to stretch yourself and delve outside of your comfort zone. My previous headteacher was often talking about the green zone – where all the learning and development happens! Just so long as you don’t enter the panic zone (see Fig A!). This is of course applicable to both children and adults. I also find that once you move out of your comfort zone, the green zone begins to get bigger, so you don’t enter the panic zone so easily! Something to bear in mind for yourself and your learners though.

Anyway, back to Tuesday after that little ramble! After my Year 7 maths lesson, I rush down to the kitchen at about 9:20am and make some scones – often with the help of some Truependous Tots. I then set up anything I need to in my classroom. At about 9:50am, my five homeschool pupils arrive and we all sit together (with our three Truependous Tots) and have the freshly baked scones or flapjacks (Ben usually makes flapjacks on a Tuesday morning and he is an absolute KING at it!).

I love having this ten minutes of chill time with the homeschool group, as it’s the perfect opportunity to have a good old chin wag about what everyone’s been up to. It usually results in a discussion about Pokemon and them all randomly bursting into songs from Encanto! I love it! I feel like as adults we don’t burst into song nearly enough. Well, saying that, Ben and I do because we work with little people every day.

At 10:00am we head up to the classroom and either have an hour of maths or an hour of English (I alternate with this group each week).

At the end of the lesson we ring the bell on the pirate ship – it’s become a bit of a ritual! Then two (sometimes three) of the homeschool pupils stay on until the afternoon and we have two hours of fun! This might involve going to the allotment, having a picnic, going to the park, making crafts, crochet, rag rugs (or a combination of lots of these things!).

The older ones get picked up at 1pm so we then have our three littler tots. I don’t teach until 3:10pm so we have two hours of playing in the garden or in the house.

My next lesson is a 30 minute 1:1 with a lovely girl who used to be in my class (four years ago!) when I taught in Germany – how cool is that?! I absolutely love how being a private tutor has meant that I get to be reunited with some of my old pupils. After that lesson, I have five minutes to set homework and prepare for my next lesson, a 1:1 hour long lesson with a fabulous student I’ve taught since the very beginning of Truependous Tutoring.

To finish off Tuesday, I have another hour 1:1 with another awesome student! That takes me to about 6pm. Luckily for me, Ben has usually made dinner when I get downstairs so we all have dinner together and then it’s chill time! Oh no, I forgot that chill time doesn’t exist with a toddler 😀 haha.

So there we have it – Tuesday! That’s actually what I call one of my quieter days!

Wednesday

I start my day in Hong Kong on Wednesdays! The time difference works out really well because it’s late afternoon for my student, and 7:40am for me. I always love this lesson! I teach English for an hour and we always end up writing some spooky horror stories, mysteries or poetry. After that, I used to have my KS1 group maths lesson, but as of this week, I’ve pressed pause on that lesson, and I am instead doing two 30 minute 1:1s, as there was a huge demand for this, and not so much of a demand for a group.

After my two 1:1s, I have another home school group who come – my KS1 pupils. They are all fabulous! It’s the same routine as with my Tuesday group – we all sit together and have snack before heading up to the classroom for an hour of maths.

Everyone in this group gets picked up at 11:00am ish and then I have an hour and 40 minutes of chill time as Ben usually takes the Truependous Tots on an adventure to the park. I call it ‘chill time’ but there’s nothing particularly chilled about it, as I’m usually running around at 100mph cleaning the kitchen, making lunch, doing some lesson prep, writing a book or writing a blog haha. This is just the way I like it though. I cannot sit still!

At 12:40pm I head to virtual Dubai and teach a 45 minute lesson – this is one of my most unique lessons as I do 22.5 minutes of maths (not exactly obvs haha!) and 22.5 minutes of English! That’s always pretty fun! Then at 1:30pm I have my LKS2 group English lesson, which is one of my highlights of the week! I absolutely love it. Following this, I have another highlight of my week, with my UKS2 group English lesson.

I then have 20 minutes to do admin and have a cup of tea or something before my only face-to-face 1:1 pupil turns up! This is a 45 minute lesson, and I alternate each week between English and maths. It usually ends with two minutes of Parkour because why not?! FYI – I don’t do any parkour sadly!

After this lesson, I have a final online 45 minute 1:1 and then finish at 5:25pm.

I call Wednesday my ‘busy day’ as it’s when I have the most lessons (nine usually), although it’s actually pretty chilled as it’s the only day I get an hour to myself before lunch!

Thursday

Thursday begins in Brunei with a super-fun English lesson. I have 6 pupils in this group and they are all absolutely incredible! I love teaching them. After that, I have a KS1 group English lesson, which I also adore! We’ve just finished looking at the book Esio Trot.

After my group lesson, I have a 30 minute maths 1:1 with an incredible pupil I’ve taught for the last two years. Following on from this at 10:40am, my third home school group of the week come over for KS2 maths. My lovely mum is our Truependous Tots assistant on a Thursday so she’s usually crawling around on the floor playing some sort of extravagant game when I come down to get the classroom ready!

At 11:40am I have they get picked up and I then work with Truependous Tots until 4:55pm! During this time we might go on an adventure somewhere, or play in the house and garden. I did have my virtual playground at 4:00pm on this day, but I’ve pressed pause on that for the time being as a few pupils were unable to make the time slot.

At 4:55pm I have an hour 1:1, with another marvellous pupil, to finish off the day nicely.

Friday

Friday is ADVENTURE DAY!!

We have six Truependous Tots ranging from ages 18 months to 4 years. We usually have a bus adventure to one of the local beaches:

One of my favourite places in the whole world (Rosemoor gardens):

Or sometimes go for a walk on the Tarka Trail for a picnic, or go to a local park.

In a nutshell, it’s an EPIC DAY!

By 5:30pm, everyone has gone home, and then the house feels absolutely massive and very quiet!

The Weekend!

Weekends are always loads of fun – you can check out some of our weekend adventures by looking at our Truependous Travels Insta.

Monday

Monday is the end of the week, just as it should be in my opinion!! I do have one lesson on a Monday morning in Brunei, from 7:45-8:35am but then I am free! Whilst I’m teaching, Ben usually takes Amala to the skatepark before dropping her off at my sister’s who is, very conveniently, also a childminder! We then have the whole day to do admin, I plan a lot of lessons, or we go for an adventure somewhere and I plan lessons in the van for a bit. At 4pm we both walk to my sister’s via the nature reserve to pick up Amala.

So there we have it! A week in the life of me! What do you think?!