Looking for Sunshine Coast tutoring? Maths tuition? English tutor? Primary school? High school?
All of the above? We’re the whole package.
Extended Learning Centres teaches Australian core curriculum from Prep through Year 12. But we are so much more than plain-old tuition, as many of us picture it.
We’ve watched tutors and tutoring services come and go from the Sunshine Coast over the decades since we started in 2002. These days, Google is littered with broken links to closed-down local tuition businesses, or impersonal national/international ‘middleman’ companies, which makes it harder than it needs to be to find someone locally to trust with your child’s education.
Some families come looking for remedial tutoring for one child, but quickly realise the value of ELC’s holistic student management and extension learning. The hard-won improvements made by a student who has fallen behind become exponential progress when we take an on-par student and extend their learning at their own optimal pace. This is particularly true if we extend primary students into high school maths ahead of their peers. Learning ahead also mitigates future issues due to, for instance, substandard teachers, missing school for illness, transitioning to high-school, or when brain function ‘takes a sabbatical’ during puberty.
Many families then decide to enrol all their children before recommending us to their close friends (which means enrolments are usually tight!). We often work with families over years (several families for a decade+) while their children traverse the education system, on their way to university, careers, and the lifestyles of their own design. Some families, we’ve worked with multiple generations!
Who can you trust with your child’s future?
After 21 years operating, we know the local schools – several now younger than us. We know by name the rockstar teachers around the Coast – the ones who students rave about year after year. And we know by name those others that students mention week-to-week with less enthusiasm. We’ve seen the curriculum pendulum this way and that, seen what gets changed, what gets deleted then added back in later, what just gets moved around and called something different. We know what students actually need to get under their belt in junior years because it’s important for future learning, for QCE, for uni entrance… and what is just time-wasting fluff.
Our Principal, Leo Blore, founded and runs our boutique Mooloolaba tutoring centre. He knows, and works with, every student personally, directing his select team of educators. He and manager/educator Dan, his right-hand man, get to know ELC families personally, to build a holistic approach to your child’s learning, motivation and aspirations.
Why families want in-person tutoring on the Sunshine Coast
We find Sunshine Coast parents typically Google tutoring when the Queensland public or private education systems are not delivering what they expect. Parents notice:
- their child is losing the innate love of learning because the Maths or English syllabus is too slow and disjointed to foster interest; or,
- their child either doesn’t get what the teacher is presenting, or doesn’t get the point of learning it.
Either way, it often becomes evident in students’ attitudes, demeanour and grades.
Either way, the sooner it’s addressed, the easier it is to rectify, and the better for students’ self-belief and motivation.
And either way, students in those situations benefit from extended learning.
A better approach to education
Leo Blore jumped ship into private tuition after 30+ years’ developing (and teaching in) private primary and secondary schools in Victoria, as well as teaching in many Sunshine Coast primary schools and high schools. He had found satisfaction in making local systemic changes that improved the education of many students. But he was frustrated by the bureaucratic misuse of resources which could have been directly improving the futures of many more. The flip-flopping of governments and administrators was demoralising. Any positive change was too incremental to benefit the students currently in the system.
Crazy as it sounds, within the school system there was pressure for him not to teach students to their potential. He found his students were limited by the arbitrary year-level system. Teachers of higher years were intimidated by his students, who had already learned all the next years’ content.
“If you do that, then what am I going to teach them in my class next year?!”
The alarming implication there is: Don’t make our lives harder by teaching your students to their potential… Slow the learning down, ‘extend’ them horizontally instead of vertically, hide the next content from eager minds, instill the idea that there is nothing interesting over the horizon of this year’s content… Extended learning is off-limits as a way of engaging students in a learning system which is disengaging so many.
However, other colleagues certainly respected his approach to learning extension. So he was assigned those students who struggled to mould themselves to fit the school system. Fast learners… the bored and disengaged… or those with knowledge gaps or learning difficulties…
Most gratifying for Leo though: even students from 20 and 30 years ago still seek him out these days to say thank you. Because he built a connection.
Tutoring then and now
Too often, Leo saw students wrongly sent to one-on-one tuition or remediation because they were disengaged – NOT because they couldn’t learn the content if they wanted to. Repeating content they weren’t interested in turned students off even further.
Tutoring has certainly progressed since then, and several Sunshine Coast tutoring establishments and school programs take pride in reengaging students who were falling by the wayside. Though some tuition is still quite perfunctory. When tutoring content just mimics week-to-week what school is doing, or trys to play ‘catch up’ while school barrels on, interest and self-confidence spiral backwards.
We need to break the cycle by taking a much longer view of where a student needs and wants to be in the future.
Find a tutor
Twenty-odd years ago (2002), when Extended Learning Centres Mooloolaba began, Sunshine Coast tutoring options were more limited. Now parents have more choice about which maths tutor or English tuition will be optimal for their child – including online tutoring and in-home tutors. So please take the time to get to know the people who will be working with your child towards their future. Ask all the questions you need to, to feel comfortable and build trust. Of course we understand why what we do works, but you need to too.
It’s not enough that a maths tutor has your child’s best interests at heart. They also need to build a connection, discover their motivation, find out what makes them tick, fill critical gaps in their knowledge, give an overview of the road ahead, show your child how to make school work for them. Oh, and then there’s subject content, which comes much more easily if all the other pieces are aligned.
So, please keep in mind the holistic bigger picture, and the point of education: your child’s future career and lifestyle options.
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You’re always welcome to talk to us about your child’s particular needs: 07 5478 1172
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Read more about Leo Blore Extended Learning Centres.
International-standard, Australian curriculum, tutoring locally
Our Sunshine Coast tutoring centre in Mooloolaba, is within 10 minutes’ drive from Maroochydore, Sippy Downs, Buderim, Mountain Creek, Brightwater, Birtinya and Kawana because we’re close to the Sunshine Motorway interchange with Brisbane Road and Nicklin Way.
Caloundra, Coolum and Nambour are usually within 20 minutes, depending on traffic.
We usually have students attending from most Sunshine Coast Schools, including:
- Chancellor State College
- Sunshine Coast Grammar School
- Immanuel Lutheran College
- Kawana Waters State College
- Maroochydore State High School
- Matthew Flinders Anglican College
- Meridan State College
- Mountain Creek State High School (walking distance)
- Nambour State College
- Siena Catholic College and Primary School
- St John’s College
- Suncoast Christian College
- Unity Christian College
- Bli Bli State School
- Good Samaritan Catholic College
- Buderim Mountain State School
- As well as home-schooled students and students of Cairns School of Distance Education (CSDE), Brisbane School of Distance Education (BSDE) and Australian Christian College (ACCDE).
We often invigilate exams for Sunshine Coast students studying via Cairns School of Distance Education (CSDE) and Brisbane School of Distance Education (BSDE), and occasionally UK private school entrance exams.
