Ski trips and exams usually don’t mix. Mocks and interviews tend to take place throughout January and February, meaning that the need for revision often clashes with prime family ski trip time. And that’s not mentioning all the young people whose GCSEs and A-levels are right around the corner. But it is possible to have it all – if you employ the help of a travelling tutor.
Kind of like a modern-day Mary Poppins (but with a degree-level education and multiple years’ teaching experience), a travelling tutor works around your family’s schedule to create a tailored learning programme that matches your child’s needs. This could be anything from full days of intensive revision to a handful of hours a week to ensure your child hits the ground running when they get home.
In-the-know, ski-obsessed families have already cottoned on to this win-win holiday solution. For example, we recently sourced a travelling tutor for a family from Surrey who wanted to help their son prepare for his maths and chemistry GCSEs and still enjoy a February half-term ski trip. The tutor joined the family every afternoon from 3pm to 6pm to deliver one week of personalised, effective tutoring. Fast-forward to August, and the student opened his results and found he had exceeded his predicted grades in both subjects. Result.
There are many academic advantages to travelling with a tutor (and you can read more about some of them here.) But the crucial reason you’d want a tutor on your ski trip is to help your child increase their learning retention over the Christmas or half-term holidays. After all, research shows they can lose up to 40% of their learning during longer breaks from school. So, whilst students need to take a break, relax, and spend time with family, it does also make sense to stay on track academically.
And that isn’t just limited to older students, either. We recently collaborated with a school to source a travelling tutor for a London-based couple who wanted to spend the ski season in Austria with their five-year-old daughter. It was really important to them that their daughter’s educational development wasn’t impacted by the trip. Happily, though, when the ski season ended and the family returned to the capital, their daughter reintegrated back into school and was ahead in reading and writing.
Academic benefits aside, residential tuition can also help you to achieve a better school-life balance as a family. Instead of sacrificing time on the slopes to go over GCSE chemistry again, you can all get away, leaving your children in the hands of a professional whilst you enjoy some child-free (and guilt-free) après ski.
