Maximize Your Impact as a Qualified Tutor with These Essential Career Tips!

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Wondering what the Qualified Tutor is or how you can be a part of it? Or maybe you just want to become a qualified tutor to attract more students? You’re in the right place!

In this article, we highlight the best features of our podcast on this very topic as well as offer the podcast links for your listening enjoyment. So let’s jump in!

David Cole, a seasoned education professional with over 15 years of experience in coaching, curriculum development, and public speaking, brings his wealth of knowledge to “The Global Classroom” podcast.

With a track record of successfully designing over 170 ESL lessons and directing large-scale events like the 2023 Global Teaching Summit, he skillfully interviews online educators, sharing valuable tips, tools, and resources.

David’s passion for fostering collaborative engagement and driving educational success shines through as he inspires online educators to reach their full potential for themselves and their students.

Listen on iTunes and Spotify, or watch on YouTube. The Global Classroom Podcast Season 1, episode [#11]!

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Introduction

Do you love working with students one-on-one? Are you curious about taking your teaching talents beyond the traditional classroom setting? Becoming a qualified tutor can allow you to turn your passion for education into a flexible, fulfilling career.

Julia has dedicated her professional life to helping students and tutors unlock their potential.

David Cole

In this interview, expert tutor and online community leader Julia Silver provides keen insights into the world of tutoring. From the skills every successful tutor needs to the importance of connecting with other tutoring professionals, Julia shares how to create social impact through personalized instruction.

An Overview of Julia Silver and the Qualified Tutor Community

Julia Silver is the host of the popular Qualified Tutor podcast and founder of the Love Tutoring Community. With over 20 years of experience in school leadership and education, Julia has dedicated her career to helping students and tutors reach their greatest potential.

I was ready to, I finished my qualification in headship, so I was a qualified head teacher, and I didn’t want to take on a big school, because as you and I both know, um, big schools sap good energy, don’t they?

Julia Silver

After becoming disillusioned by the limitations of enacting change from within traditional school walls, Julia viewed online tutoring as a more agile way to create student success. This sparked her mission to bring leadership and raise standards across the global tutoring community.

Julia started by creating the Qualified Tutor podcast focused on tutor training and development. This evolved into the Love Tutoring Community, an international collective of over 2,000 passionate tutoring professionals.

Julia has also organized global online festivals and delivers speeches to spread her message of supporting tutors to improve educational outcomes.

Best Practices

Throughout the wide-ranging discussion on tutoring best practices, several actionable themes emerge:

• Successful tutoring requires relationship building, adaptability, and self-reflection
• Certifications should offer true meaning versus just credentials
• Connecting with other tutors reduces isolation and drives excellence
• A grassroots movement is needed to raise tutoring industry standards

It has to be a grassroots movement. Why? Because that’s how we change things. We change things from the bottom up nowadays.

Julia Silver

By embracing a spirit of curiosity, generosity, and lifelong learning, tutors can make a profound impact on every student they work with.

Essential Skills for Becoming a Qualified Tutor

So what abilities make an effective, qualified tutor? Based on Julia’s experience, there are three core competencies every tutor should develop:

The three keys of skillful tutoring or effective tutoring are relationship, responsiveness, and reflectiveness.

Julia Silver

● Relationship Building: Form an authentic connection with each learner to understand their specific needs and challenges. Get to know what uniquely motivates them.

● Responsiveness: Continually adapt your approach based on direct feedback from the student. Be attuned to signs they may be struggling or disengaged.

● Reflectiveness: After each session, review what went well and what could improve. Allow learnings to change your mindsets and methods.

Cultivating these skills takes practice but allows tutors to spark transformative growth.

The Transformative Power of Tutoring Community

Teaching can often be an isolating profession, especially for tutors working independently. Julia stresses the importance of connecting with other passionate tutors by joining communities to exchange ideas and find support.

We run events roughly every six weeks, um, focused on leadership, on well being, on business.

Julia Silver

Rather than simply networking, focus on forming genuine connections. Julia applies three principles to the Qualified Tutor membership community she founded:

● Be curious – Explore others’ approaches with an open mind
● Be generous – Share your own knowledge and accept different views ● Be reflective – Allow interactions to change your perspectives

By coming together to elevate the tutoring field as a whole, everyone wins – especially students.

Moving Tutoring Out of the Shadows

In a past survey, researchers termed the rapid rise of tutoring as “shadow schooling” occurring out of sight of mainstream education systems. Julia pushes back on this notion and believes all tutors should operate with full transparency.

That means demonstrating you have the proper safeguarding training, vetting, and certifications to work successfully with students. Julia created a rigorous Qualified Tutor (QT) membership program so tutors can visibly display digital credentials confirming they meet expected standards of excellence.

And so the Qualified Tutor mark is intended to be disruptive. Once you see Qualified Tutor, why would you use somebody who’s not a Qualified Tutor?

Julia Silver

This quality mark allows parents to instantly recognize which tutors are committed to continuous improvement through ongoing training. It provides assurance that a tutor’s skills and subject matter expertise match the student’s needs.

By making the effort to become a qualified tutor, you show dedication to inspiring learning inside and outside traditional environments. It raises the credibility of the entire tutoring profession.

Want to Learn More? Dive Into Julia’s Mini-Course

If this glimpse into qualified tutoring piques your interest, Julia curated a mini-course that elaborately explains her unique framework.

Called Qualified Tutor 101, it covers:

• Her journey from school leader to tutoring entrepreneur
• The 3 pillars of safe, skilled and supported tutoring
• How to join the Love Tutoring global community

The course takes less than an hour to complete. Julia created it because she cares more about the “why” versus just the “how” of elevating educational standards. See for yourself by [joining today]!

At the end, you’ll earn your first official digital credential. This will certify you as an official Qualified Tutor member.

Don’t network. Connect.

Julia Silver

By participating, you’ll also unlock access to the incredible resources Julia built into this rapidly growing platform. So whether you’re a current tutor looking to boost credibility or want to start tutoring, there is immense value in getting qualified.

Join the Qualified Tutor Revolution!

As Julia says, “Tutoring needs more love!” When provided by properly trained, dedicated tutors connected to support each other, the benefits flow to learners.

[Join now] to embark on your qualified tutoring journey! Be part of the passionate vanguard revolutionizing personalized instruction.

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Key Takeaways

• Julia became disillusioned with limitations of leading change from within schools
• Big schools can deplete wellbeing so Julia sought a more flexible, nurturing path in tutoring
• Grassroots movement needed to raise tutoring industry standards
• Brings whole self focus through online community festivals
• Effective tutoring requires: relationships, responsiveness, reflectiveness
• Qualified Tutor credential provides transparency on capabilities
• Don’t network – focus on genuine connections
• Focus on genuine connections versus shallow networking

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] David: All

[00:00:10] David: right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s with great pleasure that I introduce my esteemed guest today, Julia Silver. Julia is a creator of the Popular Qualified Tutor podcast, as well as the founder of the Love Tutoring Community. She’s a passionate advocate for the power of tutoring. Julia has dedicated her professional life to helping students and tutors unlock their potential.

[00:00:33] David: As a bonus, Julia’s upcoming book, Love Tutoring, Turn Your Plan B into Plan A, is eagerly anticipated by both educators and students alike. That book is going to promise valuable insights as far as guidance into looking into making tutoring their primary career, as well as for those seeking to enhance their skills and approach to tutoring.

[00:01:00] David: Um, as a thought leader in the field of tutoring, Julia has become an influential voice. in the education community. She inspires countless others to tap into their own love for teaching and tutoring. Today, we are honored to have her share her experience and insights with us. So please join me in giving Julia a very warm welcome.

[00:01:23] David: Hi, Julia.

[00:01:26] Julia Silver: Yum! Can I record that and have it as my ringtone and alarm every morning, please? That was great!

[00:01:33] David: You’re welcome. I’m a big fan, big fan. Uh, your, uh, your podcast is, uh, it’s very inspirational. I know you’re doing some revamping on it and we’ll get into some of that. Um, but for those who don’t know you at all, can you give them your, like, your once over?

[00:01:52] Julia Silver: Oh, sure. Sure. Oh, that I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll tell you who I’ve been. Um, so, so my background is in school leadership and I’m a mom. I have five kids and a Labrador puppy who’s gorgeous and very badly trained. Um, and what happened was this, David, I, I was.

[00:02:18] Julia Silver: I was ready to, I finished my qualification in headship, so I was a qualified head teacher, and I didn’t want to take on a big school, because as you and I both know, um, big schools sap good energy, don’t they? Um, and they deplete well being, and I just couldn’t afford, as a mom, I could not afford to give my well being.

[00:02:42] Julia Silver: Away. Um, and so I decided to do something different. I decided to build a business, um, which is not easy, but it’s a different kind of challenge and a different kind of freedom that I’m very, very much enjoying. Um, I’ve really embraced the journey of an entrepreneur. Um, and maybe we can talk about that a little bit as well, because I find it a really joyful, um, uh, journey.

[00:03:05] Julia Silver: Mm-Hmm. . Um, but really what it’s all been about for me is leadership. So. I took myself as a school leader out of a school and I decided to bring leadership to tutoring. And the reason why I call it leadership is because there is a vision and a mission for raising standards in tutoring. And that has to happen.

[00:03:25] Julia Silver: And it can’t happen with just one lone voice and it can’t happen with one organization. It has to be a grassroots movement. Why? Because that’s how we change things. We change things from the bottom up nowadays. Having worked in a school and seen how unsuccessful top down change can be, if we want our students to benefit from thriving tutors, developed, skilled tutors, then that’s where we have to place the intervention.

[00:03:54] Julia Silver: We have to work with the tutors as independents and as businesses to make sure that they have what they need so that they can improve outcomes for their students. So, as a school leader my vision, my approach has always been to nourish the adults who work with the children. That’s where the develop that’s where I put my intervention.

[00:04:14] Julia Silver: And so in the case of tutoring, we’ve focused on tutor training, we focus on community. focus on events and festivals. And really now we’ve got to a point where we’re able to offer a membership that combines all of those elements into this big concept that I have, that tutors need to feel safe, skilled, and supported.

[00:04:35] Julia Silver: And I’ll tell you about it in a second. I created a, um, a mini course. Um, for your participants to introduce those three concepts to them of safe, skilled and supported and what that means for a tutor. Um, it’s the, it’s the product of a lot of deep thinking and soul searching in terms of my own journey as a tutor, what I found difficult.

[00:04:57] Julia Silver: What would have helped and then bringing those things together. So you mentioned my book. Somebody gave me some lovely feedback about the, uh, the third draft just went out for pre reading and somebody told me it felt like a big hug. Oh,

[00:05:12] David: that’s awesome.

[00:05:13] Julia Silver: That was a, that was a good feeling because I really feel that, you know, you can see behind me here, my love tutoring, um, branding, because I just think that tutoring needs more love.

[00:05:25] David: Is that a, is that an apron?

[00:05:27] Julia Silver: This is not an apron. I do have

[00:05:29] David: a bag. Okay. I see the bottom now.

[00:05:32] Julia Silver: And yes, I will send you one, but I can’t send it to Ecuador because you won’t be there for much longer. I will have to send it to Peru.

[00:05:37] David: There you go. Yes. Because as we travel, that’s what I love is the travel, the freedom of being a tutor, especially in the online realm.

[00:05:48] David: Um. That’s, that’s obviously my favorite, because those who know me and know about my story know that that’s our goal is to travel the world. We are our authentic selves and, you know, the money is okay, but that’s just to get you from place to place to see things to do things to whatever, uh, that that for me, um, others have their own goals.

[00:06:11] David: Uh, and so, obviously, with that being my favorite thing about online teaching, what is your? Favorite about teaching online.

[00:06:18] Julia Silver: So, so that’s beautiful. I think for me, because I, I don’t choose it currently. I support you. That’s what I do all day. That’s what I’m obsessed with. And what I love about my work is that people who choose to be tutors are heart led their values led idealists.

[00:06:38] Julia Silver: And exactly like you just said, the money is there to help you get from place to place. I love serving those people because they’re a joy to work with. So, um, my favorite thing about, about operating is in this space is the kind of people who are attracted to it. So we talk in Qualified Tutor about tutoring being flexible and fulfilling.

[00:07:00] Julia Silver: Um, and those two things combine where on the one hand you get to sort of nurture your own soul and feel like you’re really spending your time in meaningful ways. But also you’re not tied down like you would be in a school. Um, and those two things together, the way that tutoring can work alongside other things, studying, caring, whatever else you’re doing in your life, it doesn’t have to be an all consuming career, I think is very, very helpful.

[00:07:26] Julia Silver: The thing that I’m really inspired about, um, I’m going a little bit off piste here, is, um, career paths. Um, I think it’s really, really interesting to think about career opportunities in tutoring because so many teachers that I know think that they left their career path behind them when they exited the classroom.

[00:07:48] Julia Silver: And that just can’t be true because we need expertise in tutoring as well and because we as educators constantly have this need to progress. So, building out career paths in tutoring so that expert tutors can mentor new tutors, novice tutors, and creating the sense of, um, I can, I can assert my expertise and my professionalism as an advanced tutor.

[00:08:13] Julia Silver: I think that’s a really, really interesting area. So I think tutoring is one of the freshest spaces in education at the moment. And I think that the interplay between tutoring and ed tech. is where the magic is right now. Yeah.

[00:08:31] David: I can’t agree more. Uh, as you, as you talk about that, I, I, I think, um, you are in one part of the world.

[00:08:39] David: I’m in another part of where I’ve talked to people from the Philippines, from, uh, uh, Vietnam, everywhere in the world and people need tutors. We don’t need to just be in the classroom. Teachers teaching just to the masses. Sometimes there are specialties that can’t be taught in a Government sponsored or private session type situation that need to be.

[00:09:01] David: Talked about by experts in the field. So, I mean, I’ve talked to tutors who have never taught in a classroom before. They’re just an expert in what they teach and what they tutor on type situations. And so, yeah, there’s a very. Big need for, uh, tutors of all kinds. And your group kind of sponsors all of the, uh, you kind of work with all of them from all these different areas, you know?

[00:09:25] David: We

[00:09:25] Julia Silver: do, we do. So I have this approach, um, of universal pedagogy. So, um, the skills of teaching and learning are not limited to any particular subject. They are specific to the learning process. And so the way I like to say it is if you give me a good person, I can turn them into a good tutor because I can teach you how to build a relationship that’s effective for tutoring.

[00:09:50] Julia Silver: I can teach you how to show up as a trusted adult. I can teach you how to be responsive, how to plan effective sessions. I can teach you how to give feedback effectively and to factor in needs and special educational needs and mental health. I can’t yet teach you how to be a good person, but I’m working on that with my own kids.

[00:10:06] Julia Silver: Um, but what I think, what I think is really interesting is that the pedic, the, the, the subject knowledge is separate to the teaching and learning skills. And when you put the two things together. That’s when you get a synergy that can really take the students somewhere. You need both things, so I don’t need a PhD to teach me physics.

[00:10:30] Julia Silver: Thanks. I need somebody who understands physics and can break it down into its smallest pieces. Yeah, which is a different skill set. It’s a different skill set. Sometimes the PhD has the curse of the experts. They don’t remember what it feels like to not understand physics. Right. So, so what I’m looking to see here is a tutor who is qualified to tutor my student at this juncture.

[00:10:59] Julia Silver: With this specific set of needs and that will be different moment to moment. So building out an entire army of all the variations of types of tutoring is a really, really interesting project because it’s so open ended. We’re not building another school with another set of walls. We’re building educators who are beyond the walls of school.

[00:11:23] Julia Silver: I

[00:11:23] David: love that. Yeah. Building educators, not building the school. You don’t hear that very often. I mean, most people are built. We got to build the school. We got to make the school better. We got to we got to do this. No, you make the educators better than wherever they end up later in their careers as we’re talking, then that school or their private business or whatever will be better because they are better.

[00:11:48] David: They are built to where they want to be. Or where they need to be,

[00:11:53] Julia Silver: that’s right. And it creates an agility. We know that the world is changing faster than we can keep up with right now. And so the agility of educators who are not limited to a specific, you know, that lovely Peter Drucker phrase, um, that culture eats strategy for breakfast.

[00:12:12] Julia Silver: Yes. No, the culture of education and learning. There’s much, much further than the strategy of school. And we saw that very quickly in COVID, didn’t we, that schools closed. So the classroom delivery model was defunct overnight, right? But because we are committed educators, we found another way. So to my mind, that was an immense learning moment of, Oh my gosh, my commitment is not to hold up the school.

[00:12:40] Julia Silver: My commitment is to move the learners forward, which is a completely different set of outcomes that frankly, we don’t measure. It’s true, yeah. We don’t measure, we measure the outcomes of the school. Yes. Which is self perpetuating.

[00:12:54] David: I know. The whole pandemic definitely opened up and showed us that there are a lot of other ways to educate.

[00:13:01] David: Um, and some schools failed, uh, but started to learn from that. Um, they had good experiences, there were bad experiences. You’re right, failure is a, is an end, is an ending. But no, they learned. They grew. Yeah, yeah. I haven’t talked to anybody who’s completely abandoned the online Approach at all. I’ve heard of schools that have now said, no more winter break.

[00:13:27] David: Uh, no more, no more snow days I should say. No more snow days. No more snow days. Oh, they’re gonna learn from home on a snow day’s. A this is not good. This is not good. When I remember I’ve met, I wanted those snow days as the kids, but um, now you can actually work through them.

[00:13:42] Julia Silver: Your kids, your kid lives one long snow day.

[00:13:44] Julia Silver: Am I right?

[00:13:46] David: In a way, in a way, in

[00:13:47] Julia Silver: a way, it’s funny that isn’t it. I feel like you and I overlap in that sort of anti establishment approach. And yet, I, I was perfectly happy to, to, to build a school when I believe that school was the right place for children and adults. And the minute that I became.

[00:14:08] Julia Silver: Disillusioned. And I felt like I was, I felt like I could not lead change from within side the walls. That’s when I turned to tutoring as a more flexible delivery model. And I think it’s really interesting to think about modalities, about how we deliver education and how we blend the different delivery models so that we find the blend that is most suited to each student.

[00:14:29] Julia Silver: So I’ve got one kid who hasn’t been in school for two months because he’s struggling with anxiety and depression. This last week, I celebrated him going into school for an hour a day, and the rest of the day he spent training the puppy. And, and, and that’s learning. That’s what learning looks like this week.

[00:14:49] Julia Silver: It is.

[00:14:50] David: And learning comes in all types of shapes and forms. I’ve learned that because, yes, my kid has gone to traditional schools. Um, my master’s in education and I researched schooling and I know where it came from, what it did. I know what I don’t like about it. Um, and we found that there’s so many different ways to educate, whether you’re, whether you’re doing something formal with your own kid, whether they’re doing something formal in the classroom, whether we’re doing unschooling today, today, we’re going to go out and we’re going to, we’re going to see these animals in person out in the Amazon where we are right now, or we’re doing world schooling, we’re getting together with other, other students from around the world, Other kids are just having some playtime.

[00:15:33] David: They’re learning languages together. There’s so many different ways to learn and to educate children, um, that they can be successful adults as they grow up.

[00:15:43] Julia Silver: I have a good friend who’s homeschooling and, um, her youngest is now eight and she’s beginning to lose her nerve because she’s comparing her kid with other eight year olds who go to school every day.

[00:15:58] Julia Silver: Now this, this child has just been diagnosed with ADHD. And finally, she’s been able to say, okay, so he’s not reading at an eight year old’s level, but he’s also not struggling with self esteem like most kids, most ADHD kids in the classroom are struggling. So, yeah, so we are measuring a specific set of outcomes, reading, writing, numeracy.

[00:16:24] Julia Silver: We are not measuring wellbeing, confidence, resilience, and then this kid who she has really intentionally not demolished by sending him into school, where he specifically as a person could not coach. She doesn’t even get to celebrate that because she’s struggling with the confidence of it and she’s struggling with the, with, with the social anxiety of it and I really think that supporting the adults who are making this decision.

[00:16:53] Julia Silver: These decisions. Yes. It’s certainly the area where I want to place my energy. So supporting the adults when making difficult decisions about exiting the classroom, about homeschooling, about different ways of delivering learning to children. I find that a really, really interesting area because we are a generation who is making those decisions for the first

[00:17:16] David: time.

[00:17:17] David: And that support that Qualified Tutor gives, that Love Tutoring gives, is outstanding because There are people, I’ve had to learn it myself by watching my child and I’m like, Oh, no, he doesn’t keep up with his cousins or whatever, who, you know, they’re doing standardized testing and their math skills are out the.

[00:17:40] David: off the charts and things like that. But they couldn’t tell you about X animal and where it came from and all of its history and this and that. So it’s different. So I’ve learned, and this is what I try to teach to those parents that are looking at going this route. You can’t judge your child or student on a standardized scale.

[00:18:04] David: It has to be on an individual scale. Where will they be? Where are they at right now? Type situation.

[00:18:11] Julia Silver: And it’s so interesting, isn’t it? That we, that we are inconsistent with understanding that. So you can make the decision to take your child out of school, but you forget to then not measure them against standardized schooling.

[00:18:25] Julia Silver: And it’s really interesting how that sits in a blind spot. I think also a friend of mine said this to me. Me recently that it is difficult to reimagine school when it’s all you know, and so you and I went to school. We were trained to, to make school happen.

[00:18:48] Julia Silver: And now we have to break our own training to think fresh, and I think we don’t even notice how challenging that is. So you mentioned, we both mentioned COVID and, and working online. And, um, I. Very honestly say that I think I broke my brain working online because I, I, I pushed myself so, so hard to, um, to provide in the love tutoring community and a qualified tutor, something that didn’t exist.

[00:19:25] Julia Silver: And, um, because I’m naturally such a, uh, a passion led person. Um, I did that without stop and because online. goes and goes 24 seven all over the world. Um, I worked too hard and I burned myself out. Um, and I think that we need to learn. We as our generation, not not as the younger generation, we need to learn boundaries.

[00:19:54] Julia Silver: Um, they call it, uh, digital, digital health, right? Not digital safety, digital health. Um, and I think that’s a really, really interesting area to, to sort of develop our thinking in so that we understand how online can enable us to grow without breaking our brains too often. Not too often. Not too often. A little bit of breaking is okay.

[00:20:20] David: Well, I was listening to a podcast the other day about Listening, and it was basically, you think about people that are doing the airplanes, the traffic, their air traffic controllers, they have to work. They are not allowed to work for more than two hours at a time because their brain has to have a break because they’re constantly listening, paying attention.

[00:20:46] David: Um, so, tutors are very similar. You need to give yourself breaks. Entrepreneurs, we have to give ourselves breaks. Otherwise, if you don’t have that brain break, you will burn out. Um, you’ll start to hate what you love and that’s not good. We don’t want to hate what we love. So it kind of brings me around to your love tutoring.

[00:21:10] David: Um, tell me how you transitioned. Uh, we, we, we, we found out, okay, we, you moved from the classrooms, brick and mortar stuff to the qualified tutors. So now how did you evolve into the love

[00:21:21] Julia Silver: tutoring? Okay. So because of this idea that leading change has to be from the bottom up, I was always committed to creating a grassroots.

[00:21:35] Julia Silver: Movement where people’s voices were invited. So, for example, when we run the Love Tutoring Festivals, which we’ve run since 2019, and they are awesome. Um, we call the people who join us participants, not attendees. And we don’t run conferences. We run festivals because we’re really, really interested in bringing the whole self.

[00:22:02] Julia Silver: Um, I’m really interested in the power of community. I think it’s, um, I think it’s the most, uh, it’s one of the best muscles that we have to lead healthy change at the moment. I think it’s what was lacking and I think it’s our strength. And so the love tutoring community was born out of this, this like.

[00:22:24] Julia Silver: The more the merrier, arms wide open approach to, um, to, to, to business and, and, and, uh, organization and education. Um, I have a poster here that says we are limitless and that’s really what it feels like. So to me, the, I love the Love Tutoring community is this open ended safe space. It’s not a Facebook community.

[00:22:49] Julia Silver: It’s. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a private, um, you know, we have our own app that you download when you join the community and that means that it’s a professional development community that is safe and close. And anybody who wants to join has to tell me why. So we currently have nearly 3000 tutors from all over the world who all understand that the idea is reciprocity.

[00:23:14] Julia Silver: I need to come in, I need to share what I know, I need to learn from you. Have I told you about the three qualified tutor house rules? No, not the rules, no. This is going to tell you everything you need to know. So when you join the community, the first thing, the first spiel you hear from me is be curious, be generous, and be reflective.

[00:23:33] Julia Silver: Curious,

[00:23:33] David: generous, reflective,

[00:23:34] Julia Silver: okay. Okay, so, curious means taking on new knowledge, put down what you know, and explore what somebody else knows. Right? Generous means Two things, share with me what you know, because I’m a learner too, and don’t jump down my throat when I get things wrong, because nobody gets things right all the time.

[00:23:56] Julia Silver: And then that third piece reflective is what professional development is all about. You need to allow learning to change you, because if you think about that distinction between education, where we’re jumping hoops to get exam grades and real learning, it’s the change that happens internally that really typifies learning.

[00:24:18] Julia Silver: And that’s, that’s what I’m pointing to in the Love Tutoring community. I love that,

[00:24:22] David: yes. Because it all, yeah, it all leads to growth. If you are, if you are, uh, not just sharing, you’re taking in information. You’re letting people share with you. You’re sharing with them. Then you’re able to grow yourself as long as you keep open.

[00:24:34] David: And I love that.

[00:24:36] Julia Silver: Yeah, and it’s, and it’s, what’s really interesting because it’s a practice. It’s not easy. What you find is that you use your muscle to stay open. So, so all of that, you know, we’re so used to being entrenched and we’re so used to being defensive. And instead what you do is you use your own power to keep your own mind open and keep challenging yourself.

[00:24:58] Julia Silver: It’s exhausting. It’s a real, it’s a real endeavor. It’s a discipline and I found it very, very powerful.

[00:25:06] David: Yes, definitely. So those are the rules. Now, earlier you alluded to your pillars and everybody who goes to your site, you can see a lot of cool things about the pillars, safe, secure and supported. So how do you use those principles?

[00:25:20] David: Yes. How do you use those principles in your coaching business?

[00:25:24] Julia Silver: Okay, so, um, I think what’s really interesting is that I’m much more of a why person than a how person. Okay. Yeah, so I’m all into the culture. And I’ve spent so so much time thinking about what that changes and what raising standards and tutoring is, and what that vision for plan a tutoring could feel like for a tutor who is used to being lonely and used to being unsupported.

[00:25:53] Julia Silver: and a little bit insecure. And then eventually I understood that it comes down to these three needs of safe, skilled, and supported. I need to know that when I show up in my tutoring session, um, I’ve created a safe space around myself. I am aware of any safeguarding concerns. I understand risk assessment.

[00:26:14] Julia Silver: I understand a code of conduct. So that’s the skill area. And it creates this safe area so that I’m not putting myself in any jeopardy because I’m not protected by the school processes like I would be as an educator in a school. I then need to think about skilled and for me in terms of my own professional integrity.

[00:26:34] Julia Silver: I need to know I’m doing a good job when I take money from a parent, and, and when I lack confidence, which I tend to, as many of us do in this space, um, I need to have a tangible understanding of what it means to be skilled as a tutor. So what I’ve understood is, like we were speaking about before, the pedagogical subject knowledge.

[00:26:58] Julia Silver: You need to understand your subject and how to break it down for your learner, and then how to move them forward to where you need to get to. So a little key there, the three keys of skillful tutoring or effective tutoring are relationship, responsiveness, and reflectiveness. And if you can develop those three areas within your tutoring, then you’ll know that you’re a skillful tutor.

[00:27:23] Julia Silver: But that’s not the only thing, because then you need to show parents that you’re skillful. You need to assert your excellence. I once heard, um, I was on a, on a panel, on a, a tutor business panel, and somebody in the audience asked the most rogue question I’ve ever heard. She said, what’s the difference between a five pound tutor and a 50 pound tutor?

[00:27:46] Julia Silver: And one of the People next to me just blurted out the answer, branding.

[00:27:55] Julia Silver: Okay, yeah, yeah. Which is profound and painful, yeah? It is. Because an educator’s value is not in their branding. An educator is not a marketer.

[00:28:08] David: They aren’t, not by heart. Right? Not by heart. Most educators Well,

[00:28:14] Julia Silver: except in Except in the extent that teaching is actually marketing because you’re selling ideas.

[00:28:21] Julia Silver: But, but beyond that, to be able to teach parents to trust you, to be able to teach parents to pay a premium to work with you, you need to have a tangible understanding of what your skill level is. And that’s what we work on in Qualified Tutor. We work on membership training credentials that really, really quantify what your qualifications are as a tutor.

[00:28:43] Julia Silver: And it’s complex. It’s really complex, and we have lots of different solutions and lots of different conversations about what excellence means in tutoring, and I’m really, really proud of that because there’s no one answer. Yeah. But engaging in the question is extremely helpful. It’s true.

[00:28:58] David: It’s one of the, my pet peeves is I’m in a lot of the different Facebook groups and I see people talking about price and.

[00:29:05] David: People are like, oh, well, I could only do 7. They’ll only pay 7 for a class. And I’m like, thinking to myself, well, think about your time. Think about your worth. Think about all the extra stuff that you put into these things. And I always have to respond and get involved in those conversations because.

[00:29:24] David: People aren’t always thinking about that. They just literally think, well, what do you think the parent’s going to pay me? No, you need to tell the payment why they’re paying this premium for you. You are worth more than you think you are.

[00:29:38] Julia Silver: I mean, maybe you are. But I’d like to know why, right? So, um, with my mommy hat on, I also want to know how I can understand what your value is.

[00:29:49] Julia Silver: I want to pay you a fair price. I want you to charge me a fair price. I need a language of transparency there. So if you’re a head teacher, if you have a dyslexia assessment training, and I have a student who is dyslexic and is in primary school, then you might be the right person for me. And I can quantify that.

[00:30:11] Julia Silver: If you’re a high school kid. who’s pretty good at maths, you may still be an effective tutor for a fifth grade student. Let me just reflect, let that reflect in the value, not the value of you as a person, but the value of your time and your level of skill. And that takes us back to that idea of a progression.

[00:30:34] Julia Silver: If we really want to talk about expertise, it’s not about inflating value. It’s about creating transparency for what the value really is. Yes, I like that.

[00:30:46] David: So let me tell you about the third pillar. Okay, let’s hear about the third

[00:30:50] Julia Silver: pillar. We’ve already spoken about the Love Tutoring community. It’s all about bringing voices together.

[00:30:54] Julia Silver: It’s all about speaking and being heard. And the problem with tutoring is it can be lonely. Because whether you’re working as an independent tutor, or you’re working as part of an agency, you tend to work in a silo. You work very closely with students. You work quite closely with parents, but you do not work closely with other tutors and professionals cannot exist like that.

[00:31:18] Julia Silver: So there’s a study in the UK from 2019 from the Sutton Trust where they call tutoring shadow schooling. Now, I have a very strong reaction to that phrase because I don’t believe that educators can or should exist in the shadows. Yeah, a school in the shadows is a very concerning thing in a culture where we’re so concerned about safeguarding.

[00:31:42] Julia Silver: And also about people development. So we need to keep, we need to keep tutoring in the light. And a professional development community supportedness creates that light space where I can ask my questions. I can be wrong. Yeah, but I’m working in context very, very often. I used to close the door on a student at the end of a session.

[00:32:04] Julia Silver: Sometimes I’d be like, I smashed that and I didn’t have anyone to share it with. And sometimes I’d be like, I didn’t nail that. And I’m not sure why. And nowadays I go into the love tutoring community and I discuss it with them and we bounce ideas around. And like we said before, it’s not failure because we learned.

[00:32:24] Julia Silver: That’s

[00:32:25] David: awesome. Can we show some of the attendees today? Well, you mentioned the community and it’s more than just a Facebook group and or anything like that. It’s a whole platform that you’ve developed.

[00:32:38] Julia Silver: Yeah. Are you inviting me to share screen? Yes,

[00:32:41] David: please. I love to show people things, not just talk about it.

[00:32:47] David: I’m going to

[00:32:47] Julia Silver: show you two awesome things with your permission. First, I’m going to share a screen to the Love Tutoring community because It’s such a joy. I’m so proud of it. So we ask these interesting questions all day about exam prep, about wellbeing, and we discuss what people need. We discuss what tutors need to nurture themselves and to nurture their students.

[00:33:15] Julia Silver: And the vibe is just so, so supported. There’s always something going on. It’s always good hearted and lighthearted appropriate. So this is safeguarding. We delivered a safeguarding session this morning and Adrian, who delivers the session is so appropriate with this very difficult content, which makes me really, really proud because.

[00:33:37] Julia Silver: You have to be mindful of the learners, um, and be gentle with them. So there’s a lot that’s going on here all the time. This is an event that happened. You might know Michael and Samantha, um, Joanne and Georgina. They ran an event and they advertised it in the community because we want to know what’s going on out there.

[00:33:55] Julia Silver: Very often I hear from tutors that it’s difficult to know what’s going on when you’re not working in a school. And I find that to be totally the opposite. I find that there is so much going on in the tutoring space. You just need to stay connected. So these are just some of our two and a half thousand members, nearly 3000 based all over the world.

[00:34:15] Julia Silver: And they are the most passionate professionals you could meet. We run events roughly every six weeks, um, focused on leadership, on well being, on business. We run group coaching once a week, and we run drop in sessions once a week, and also a co working session once a week. And all of those sessions are designed to make people feel not lonely.

[00:34:38] Julia Silver: The opposite of lonely, right? Supported. And normal. And in context. And it works beautifully because the feedback that I get, and it blindsides me sometimes because when you’re working online, you don’t, you don’t get feedback so easily, but then when you do, it’s just magic because there’s lives being changed here just from the supportiveness.

[00:35:00] Julia Silver: And it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a thing we’re really proud of. Shall I show you the other thing?

[00:35:06] David: Yes. I’d love to see the other one. If it’s ready.

[00:35:10] Julia Silver: Yes. It’s ready. It’s ready. It’s ready. I want to show you. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Hannah was just finishing it off. So, so let me show you something cool.

[00:35:18] Julia Silver: Um,

[00:35:21] Julia Silver: okay. So this is the qualified tutor website, qualified tutor. org. And over here, we’ve just launched our new membership packages and membership is based on, these are all in pounds, not dollars. So Our membership is based on being able to provide all of our benefits in a one stop accessible package. So whether you’re a tutor working alone, or in a small team, a tutor company, or a large organization, we can support you with onboarding, induction, training, professional development, community, branding, digital membership,

[00:36:06] Julia Silver: quality assurance, events. And really what it comes down to is this new generation of what a professional membership body should be. So I’m going to stop share for a second to tell you this. I’m really passionate about this.

[00:36:26] Julia Silver: When I started Qualified Tutor, I knew that I needed to show people how serious I was. And so I joined this organization and they let me use their logo and I signed up for that membership. They let me use their logo. And eventually I had this website that was a collection of other people’s logos, right?

[00:36:48] Julia Silver: Which was me sort of like climbing the credibility ladder. And it got to a point where I thought, but there’s no meaning behind any of those. I just bought a sticker. It’s just a sticker collection. Where is the meaning? Behind membership, the kind of meaning that gives transparency, that creates trust.

[00:37:13] Julia Silver: What is that really based on? So I’ve developed a really expensive product. I mean, it’s expensive for me, not for my members, which is digital credentials. Now, a digital credential is what universities are going to start delivering soon, where instead of sending you a PDF of your university certificate, they send you a digital credential, which is verified and on the blockchain.

[00:37:39] Julia Silver: So nobody can forge one, right. So when, when a tutor shares my digital credential, the qualified tutor digital credential with a parent, they know that it’s in date, they know that it’s verified. And they know that it has safeguarding and police checks sitting behind it as a requirement. So a parent knows that this is not just a PDF, it’s not just a sticker, it’s actually a piece of meaning where the membership represents a shared vision for raising standards and tutoring together.

[00:38:14] Julia Silver: It’s really meaningful, it’s really heart led, and the goal is that it creates more trust and more transparency in tutoring, which is, as we started off by saying, such a complex area, such a complex nuanced field, that creating transparency within it is really difficult and really important.

[00:38:38] David: Definitely, definitely.

[00:38:40] David: I love that it’s global. It’s not just regional. Yes, because there’s, you’ve got regional things here and there’s regional things there and you can get a specific certification for your area of, uh, uh, expertise, but maybe something that shows that you are like dedicated that you, uh, are working with all these others and you’ve, show us a little bit more about what’s behind the certification.

[00:39:09] Julia Silver: I will. Absolutely. I will. Um, and do you know about World Tutors Day? So we launched World Tutors Day three years ago, 2nd of July, 2nd of July, just after exams, just after exams, but just after, just before results. So, um, teachers get all of those thank you cards, right? They get chocolates and gifts at the end of term.

[00:39:31] Julia Silver: Yes. We think it’s important that tutors get thank yous too. So we launched World Tutors Day, so watch out for it, 2nd of July, and we’ll let you know more about that, and the Love Tutoring Festival 4. So what sits behind the membership? The things that make you safe. So, please check and safeguarding training.

[00:39:51] Julia Silver: The things that make you skilled, your training, your credentials, your commitment to professional development and the things that make you supported, who your mentors are and who your peers are. So we give you access to the Love Tutoring community to ensure that you’re supported. We give you access to our training to make sure that you’re skilled.

[00:40:11] Julia Silver: And we ensure, and we offer you if you can’t get, if you don’t have them already, the police check and the safeguarding training to ensure that you’re safe. So that’s the way that we are building out this enabling vision of, of a membership that is raising standards in tutoring. How will I know when I’ve been successful, David?

[00:40:28] Julia Silver: Go on, ask.

[00:40:30] David: Oh, how will I know when I’m successful?

[00:40:34] Julia Silver: Glad you asked. When parents ask tutors, are you a QT member? Are you a qualified tutor?

[00:40:44] David: I like that. Yes, because how do you get, how do we, how does it get there to parents, the parents knowing, because that is the trick.

[00:40:53] Julia Silver: It’s really interesting. So the reason why I first started Qualified Tutor was because as a mum, I didn’t have the same reassurances.

[00:41:01] Julia Silver: That I did as a school leader, I wasn’t able to do reference checks and police checks and interviews in the same way that I was as a school leader and that discrepancy made me very uncomfortable. But I understood that what I didn’t want to do was replicate what was going on in school. I needed to talk with parents as consumers.

[00:41:22] Julia Silver: I needed to create an offer that was B2B. So the model that I’ve landed on is a quality mark. It’s like fair trade. Yes. So whenever I see the fair trade mark, I know that there are some values led people there who are representing a set of values that I subscribe to. Right. And so the Qualified Tutor mark is intended to be disruptive.

[00:41:48] Julia Silver: Once you see Qualified Tutor, why would you use somebody who’s not a Qualified Tutor? Because it’s not difficult or expensive to access. And if you’re serious about tutoring, you’ll be part of this membership body. Awesome. Yes. There’s a lot of people. Did we mention that to you? Uh, yes. We have a parent facing directory, so once you’re a member, you’re also listed on our membership directory.

[00:42:13] Julia Silver: And I think that that’s a really important thing, and it’s difficult to position it right because it’s not another platform, it’s not really a space to find tutors, it’s a space to verify tutors. That’s

[00:42:26] David: a good distinction, that is a very good distinction. It’s

[00:42:28] Julia Silver: an important distinction because I also think it’s important for me to be able to list agencies and tutor platforms.

[00:42:36] Julia Silver: As members, because everybody should have this requirement, the safe, skilled and supported. So parents then have to know what the QT membership means, and then they have to know what else agencies are bringing to them. So agencies still have, they still have a benefit. They still add value. They just have to be really clear what that value is.

[00:42:58] Julia Silver: A tutor platform adds value. It creates this, this, um, accessible space. But it must have regulation and checks involved. So by becoming a member of the QT directory, they’re becoming, um, reassuring to parents. They’re carrying that mark of trust and quality. So

[00:43:23] David: upon listening to this, our, our, our viewers are probably wondering, how do I access this space?

[00:43:29] David: How do I, how do I become a member?

[00:43:32] Julia Silver: Well, firstly, thank you for that feedback. I really appreciate it. Cause sometimes I’m so excited. I don’t know if I’m leaving people behind and I don’t want to do that. Um, I made a little course. I made, I made a mini course for you. I’ve called it qualified tutor 101.

[00:43:44] Julia Silver: Cause like I told you, I’m much better at why than how. So I made this mini course to And, um, I’ll share with you the link. When they follow through that link, it will help them to join the, it will invite them to join the Love Tutoring community and they will complete a short course in there. They’ll have three videos from me that explain those three different ideas.

[00:44:04] Julia Silver: And the last one is the treasure hunt. They get to go into the community and find some things and introduce themselves, make use of the community so that hopefully by the time they finish that short course, it won’t take them more than 40 minutes. Um, they’ll actually have orientated themselves in the community and they’ll have earned their first credential.

[00:44:23] David: That will be linked down below everybody. So you can access that. Just scroll down past this video. And when we’re done,

[00:44:29] Julia Silver: and when you join, please message me and tell me that Dave said, David sent you. I would be really, really happy to welcome you in.

[00:44:36] David: So that’s very cool. Well, that has been a lot of amazing information.

[00:44:45] David: Do you have any, any kind of partying advice, anything that you’d like to share with everybody here you

[00:44:51] Julia Silver: didn’t get to yet? I do, I do, I do. I tell you what’s on my mind and in my heart at the moment. Don’t network. Connect.

[00:45:04] David: Don’t network. Network. Connect. Oh, I, I want a shirt that says that.

[00:45:08] Julia Silver: Yeah. . I’m gonna make you a shirt that says that, David, I tell you why, because you and I had a really nice chat last time and I met your wife and I heard about your travels, and I heard about your journey, and that meant that I knew who I was talking to and I could open my heart to you with confidence.

[00:45:22] Julia Silver: That’s not networking. That’s connection. Yes. That’s what we need to teach our kids to do. Yes.

[00:45:29] David: I, I, and I, I totally agree. The world needs to have more connection, not as much networking, more connection. So. Definitely, on those, those are some great parting words from Julia here. So, everybody, again, thank you.

[00:45:45] David: Thank you, Julia. Uh, it’s been excellent, and um, yeah. Do scroll down below, look at this workshop, join the community, uh, and show everybody how you can. Alright, take care, Julia. David, thanks for your time. See you soon. Hey there, fellow teachers and digital nomads. Grilled to have you here soaking up the wisdom from our videos featuring your, but hey, not just here to entertain you.

[00:46:18] David: We want to hear from you. Got a burning topic that you want us to cover? Maybe awesome story and intriguing insight you want to share with your peers? Well, don’t be shy. Give us an email. Contact at thetutorresource. com or drop us a message on Facebook. Your voice matters and we want to amplify it in our awesome community.

[00:46:45] David: Thanks again for watching and remember to like, subscribe, and smash that notification bell to be alerted when new videos are published. Take care.