Frequently Asked Questions

Parents are realising that there is a better alternative to tutoring. They come looking for ‘maths tutoring’, ‘English tuition’ or a ‘science tutor’ and find here more than they had imagined.

ELC’s method is different from tutoring because we teach ahead of schools. We know the curriculum and the most important concepts that students will need to do well at school, and we teach these before students encounter them at school.

Traditional tutoring is a game of catch-up, always bringing struggling students back up to standard in one concept but never looking forward to the next concept, so the student too easily falls behind again. Constantly falling behind is a real drain on students’ self-believe and motivation.

By learning concepts as soon as they know the foundation concepts (rather than waiting for schools to introduce them), students’ confidence and ability snowballs forwards rather than backwards. Students find themselves ahead of the pack. The work is easy – more like revision, understanding more deeply. And they can easily achieve better marks.

We focus on Maths and English, but cover any other subjects as needed.

Based on the Australian National Curriculum, ELC has its own curriculum that focuses on the core components of maths and English. In Years P to 9, all ELC students concentrate on Maths because the concepts and skills are numerous and need to build on one another in order. Our secondary focus English core-skills and the structure and features of the main genres pieces. By relieving the stress and workload associated with Maths and English, students are freer to apply themselves to the other subjects at school and so generally don’t need much support in these.

Whenever students have difficulty with any of their school subjects, they bring in their work so that we can explain it, make sure they understand and can move forward. If needed, we switch our focus, short-term, to work through that particular assignment or topic so that we can return to our long-term core-skills focus.

The program of Years 10, 11 and 12 students at ELC is generally driven by their current schoolwork. This can include direct point-of-need tutoring in Maths, English, Biology, Physics, Chemistry and other Sciences. We can also help with any other school subjects, as the planning, research, writing and presentation skills need are broadly the same – only the content differs.

Students working well ahead in Maths and English can branch out into the sciences, history, geography and other areas as time allows.

ELC sessions are 75 minutes.

• 3:35 – 4:50 Monday to Thursday
• 5:00 – 6:15 Monday to Thursday
• 6:30 – 7:45 Tuesday

ELC operates Monday-Thursday for each week of each term of a public school year.
Terms are usually 10 weeks long. The Queensland Government school calendars are here.
We run no sessions on Fridays, weekends, or state school holidays.

Our term dates are the same as the Queensland Department of Education state school terms, except that we operate public holidays and student-free days that fall Monday-Thursday during public school terms. See FAQ for more info on public holidays.

Yes, we operate on public holidays and student-free days which fall Monday-Thursday during the weeks of Qld state school terms.

Wedo this so that our students’ learning can progress uninterrupted. Since we see most of our students once per week, a day off means a fortnight without an ELC session. This can derail progress and habit building. It often would also mean students miss an opportunity to prepare for a test with us or to have feedback on a task before it is due. Our Monday students would be particularly disadvantaged, with so many holidays falling on Mondays.

Most families are happy to keep continuity by attending public holidays, but if you have plans to be away, talk to us in advance so we have the best chance of finding an alternative session for you.

If your session is on a public holiday and you have plans, that’s fine. Please let us know in advance so that we can arrange an alternative session.

Please see our Pricing page.

We know the education and school systems, their environments, and how difficult it can be in these large environments to get the individual care and attention that our children deserve.

As parents, the importance we place on an educational institution is often in this order: safety and discipline, the student’s happiness and then education.

If the first two are met… we generally “roll along” with the third.

The quality of education is important for the individual and family well-being. A satisfaction in knowing that your child is enjoying the year is often enough. If they’re happy, you’re happy! It is indicative of school being a fun place to be, personality clashes with teachers and other students is confined to the past or until future years!

Quality of education can often become a low parent priority in a busy world and in the education world of today, often we don’t understand. Immersed in the stress of our own lives it usually follows behind safety, the student’s happiness and well-being and a disciplined environment.

Students who have received specialised learning at some stage during their school years operate at a higher level of confidence and understanding.

We often bring up university and career in conversation with our students, and you should too, to:

• instil the idea that they will naturally progress to tertiary education or training;
• develop children’s thoughts of their future direction;
• connect the their effort today with their future ambitions.

These days we can change career path many time throughout our life. Students have little experience of the world of careers and jobs, so it is difficult for them to imagine what they might enjoy, especially if they aren’t aware of the options.

Suggest exploring these sites to broaden their knowledge or discover a dream job:

My Future

ELC has special Queensland Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardians registration (number 125048/1). All employees in Extended Learning Centres are checked for suitability for child related employment through the CCYPCG.

We email invoices each term. We’ll send your first invoice after your first session.

Payment is due before the end of Week 1 each term, or within 1 week of invoice, whichever is later. Please do contact us if you need to discuss this so as not to jeopardise your ELC placement.

Payment method details are on your invoice – cash, or direct credit transfer (online banking). We have no facility for EFTPOS or cheques.

Cash payments are receipted, but electronic transfers are only receipted upon request.

If you need to miss your session, please notify us. This is important, since otherwise we get worried!

Notification as far in advance as possible is very much appreciated. We put a lot of effort into trying to organise for unattended sessions to be used by another student, or we’ll offer it as extra time for deserving students at no cost. Each term, ELC sponsors several students who are experiencing difficult circumstances but who show great enthusiasm for learning, pro bono.

Your fees cover your set session time each week. Since we want to maintain our low student-educator ratio, we can offer extra sessions to make up for a missed session only where we know far enough in advance that we will have another student absent, whose session you might take.

We try to offer extra sessions to make up for absences due to illness, but still this is necessarily subject to availability, so discuss options with us as soon as you know they’ll miss their session.

Since we are covering for staff and your placement reservation whether your student is here or not, ELC fees are per term, rather than per week or per session attended. Consequently, we do not ‘bank’ or refund unattended sessions. Likewise, we unfortunately cannot carry unattended sessions into the next term.

Please see our Conditions of Enrolment and feel very free to clarify any points with us before enrolling.

Over the years, we have thought very carefully about our enrolment regulations, and one that we have had to be very consistent with is not carrying missed sessions over to new terms. We try hard to be flexible and provide alternative sessions wherever possible, but we can only guarantee your regular session time; we can’t guarantee catch-ups. Since your term fees go to covering educators only for your regular set placement for the whole term, having to provide educators for your missed regular session as well as a catch-up while maintaining our educator-student ratio would mean extra educators. If each student were to request just a single carry-over – all other factors being perfect – we would have to provide a minimum 10% extra staff to cover the next term, naturally necessitating a price increase. The effect would increase prices again the following term. That’s why our fees are per term rather than per session.

The only way in which we are able to offer catch-ups without substantially raising prices – which we put a lot of effort into – is by offering out the placements of students who have given at least a few days’ notice of absence, since we have already provided staff for that student’s session whether that student attends or not.

We provide all stationery. And water to drink. Students should have a snack before their session starts.

Whenever possible, we will be teaching core curriculum content in advance of school, so we provide all learning materials.
However, when students need our help directly with current school content, they should bring all related materials from school (hand outs, taks sheets, textbooks, workbooks, class notes, teachers’ slides, teacher feedback, devices to access materials in online school portals, etc). Because different teachers can have different expectations for the same topic, more information we have about what their teacher expects, the more efficient and effective we can be at helping students to understand what their teacher wants.

Each week, students bring in their ELC ‘home folder’ which we provide at their first session. We use these to send home materials for students to consolidate or progress their learning between sessions.

Between ELC sessions, students should always continue with their maths process of diagnostic tests and/or concept practice. when applicable.

Homework is a complex topic, never one-size-fits-all, so please check in with us about your particular student whenever you have questions. Expectations need to be tailored to each individual and will change over time.

Our one consistent rule is that ELC homework should never cause excessive stress, conflict or boredom for the student or for you. Any time this happens, leave the homework for now, and talk to us.

There is a very short changeover time between sessions so it is not practical to chat to every parent in this time. Instead, please keep in touch via email or phone.

We encourage students to come into ELC by themselves if old enough. Students must wait inside ELC until they see their parents’ car. Students may only leave ELC by themselves if parents arrange this with ELC staff first.

Upon arrival, students should generally come straight in and get started. However, if arriving more than a few minutes ahead of their session time, students should wait in the foyer until closer to their session time, or until we invite them in.

We kindly ask parents wishing to catch one of our staff also to wait in the foyer and get our attention rather than entering the learning areas. We encourage you to contact us through phone or email because we usually do not have time to meet during or between sessions, unless pre-arranged. A quick email giving feedback on student progress at home or school is always welcome! (This could include progress on behaviour modification.)

Of course, your child is welcome to bring in schoolwork that they need help with or that they simply may like to share or discuss.

Our long-term aim is to work ahead of school by focusing on the ELC curriculum, but if there is current school work that they need support with, then that becomes our short-term focus to alleviate stress, which then allows us to focus once again on working ahead.

Your regular session time can be changed permanently, if necessary, only if an alternative is available. One-off session changes might be possible if you can attend the session of another student who has given us notice of their future absence.

Please see our Conditions of Enrolment.

Our educators – we are educators rather than tutors because we do more than is commonly associated with tutoring – must have the intrinsic capacity to develop rapport, communicate on many levels and facilitate the building of knowledge.

Beyond this, our educators must know their stuff. We cover all areas of mathematics including Maths B for Year 11 and Year 12. They must know the genre structures in English, including thesis essays (argumentative, analytical), narrative and short story, monologues, reports, speeches, feature articles and news writing. We provide templates and information on these forms but it is the connectivity or our educators that instils this information as understanding.

A key feature of our educators is that they are intimate with the how the school system works and how to “play the school game”.

All our staff are cleared by Queensland Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardians to work with children.