Minutes of Meeting of the Tutor Seminar held on the 6th of November 2002
at 16 Porchester Terrace, Paddington, London, W2
Those who attended:
Anthony Wigram, Avril Hanning,Cliff Docherty, Maria Tremarco, Lisa Oram, Chris
Frederick,Patricia Webb, Tracey Fawthrop, Shahab Reza, Simon Smith, Evelyn
White, Amjad Taha, Boyko Grigorov, Debbie Brixey, Sina Adekoya, Janice
Pearson, Aldo Zeolla, Daniel Gilson, Sally Fonseca, Fitwi Kebede
1. Apologies for Absence
Tracy Pernice, John Howlett, David Somerset, Gabriella Gatward, Gianbattista
Montagna, Michelle Delgado, Ademola Olayinka, Helen Dashwood, Amjad Rehman,
Keith Penrose.
2. Minutes of last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting was read. There were no changes made.
3. Administration –Avril Hanning
(i) Lesson Reporting
Avril asked to have a general discussion about the new lesson reporting system
and Deborah B said that she felt that we should eliminate text boxing
completely and that we should have a text only system.
Simon S also mentioned that he would like to have receipts for the lesson
reports he sends in and Avril agreed that this would be a good idea.
Generally the tutors agreed that the new lesson reporting/ invoicing system
is working well and that there are a few queries.
Avril also clarified the new paying system in which tutors would receive £33
for lessons sent on the same day, £31 for lessons sent late and £32 for lesson
sent the next day because of computer problems. The tutors agreed that this
was a fair system and that it was a good incentive to send the reports in on
the same day.
4. Structure of Course- Shahab Reza
Shahab went through the structure in which he does his course, from the
assessment to the final lesson report. He said that student’s needed time to
develop their skills and that he makes and gives notes to students after every
lesson. He said that at each new lesson he revises the previous lesson and
answers all the questions put forward by the student. He stated that in this
way the information becomes more concrete and this would improve their
confidence because they know the material very well.
Simon S mentioned that other tutors would not have so much time to spend on
certain things as they are working full time and also hold other work.
Patricia said that what she does is provide emailing support. Patricia also
mentioned that no two students are the same and that each student has
different needs.
Anthony W said that this was an individual relationship between the tutor
and the student and he was thrilled at the way it works out with all the
different tutors and students. At the end of the day it is an understanding
between tutors and students and that we are all working together for the same
goal.
5. Safer Emailing – Simon Smith
Simon stated that because there was so many viruses going around that it would
be safer to BCC bulk emailing than to send it directly or to CC it.
Avril said that this is something that we could do in the future.
Simon also mentioned the issue of technical problems and asked the question of
how far do we go with solving computer problems. Anthony said that if it was
something simple to install or loading a programme that would be fine. However
if there was technical support needed that we should not get involved and that
the tutors need to leave and the student’s would have to sort the problem on
their own. Anthony also said that little problems was part of the learning
process and that if extra lessons were needed that we would be willing to give
it provided that the student has shown progress.
We also spoke about giving the tutor 10 minutes to sort it out. Aldo said
that this would be very difficult to leave after trying to fix the problem.
Patricia said that this gives us time to find our whether or not we could deal
with the problem. Shahab stated that if he could solve the problem quite
easily that it was no problem and that it would take his student’s a longer
time to sort out the problem if the person trying to fix the student’s
computer did not do BSL. He said that it made things much easier.
6. Time Limits for Student’s to complete the course- Debbie Brixey
Debbie stated that she would like to know the time limits for the course for
all students. She said that one of her students was on the course for 18
months and where should we draw the line.
Avril said that we needed to create a balance between tutors and students and
we should consider the period of 6 months. Patricia said that she found 6
months to be fair to the student. Avril said that if their was a genuine
reason such as sickness or computer problems that those students would be put
on hold until they were ready to start the course again. Avril said it becomes
the responsibility of the office if the students are on hold for long periods
of time.
7. Discussion on female students preferring female tutors
Shahab mentioned that he had a student who preferred to have a female tutors
because she had a jealous boyfriend. He said that he felt that this was not
right and he wanted to know what we could do about it. Avril said that we had
to try and draw a balance between various needs of individual students. On a
religious point of view some female students would not be allowed to have male
tutors. On the other side some female student’s living on their own with a
disability are quite vulnerable and prefer to have a female tutor. We all
agreed that we would not stand for racial discrimination, however it was
generally agreed that we have be sympathetic to the needs of individual
students.
8. Student Recruitment & Development
Cliff Docherty went through what he has been doing in the last few months.
He stated that the key recruitment successes were the taxi cards and Dial a
Ride.
He said that the leaflets have been distributed all over London and in
Doctors surgeries.
Simon Smith mentioned that we could place an Advertisement on the radio for
£70. Anthony said that he would look into that.
9. Funding Update- Chris Frederick
Chris said that he was very busy making the video of U Can Do I.T. and that we
had used it for the AGM and the Department of Education and Science. He also
mentioned that when he was bidding for funding in a certain boroughs that all
the boroughs would like the students to come from their borough. He also
mentioned a questionnaire which also needed to be filled in.
Chris also said that we need to look at what students want from the course
and that their should be some accreditation. He also mentioned that Sharon
Cohen of the Westminster Voluntary Association has an AQA system which works
on a point system and students could obtain accreditation through this system.
Debbie Brixey also mentioned the CLAIT system and Anthony said that we would
look into this.
10. Tutor Training- Patricia Webb
Patricia Webb spoke about the Jaws training which she does on a one to one
basis with the tutors at her home. She encouraged all tutors to do the
training.
11. Date of Christmas Drinks
Anthony mentioned that the Christmas drinks will be held on the 2nd of
December at Ye Grapes and that tutors could bring their partners with them. He
encouraged all tutors to attend.
12. Website- Cliff Docherty
Cliff mentioned that he would be doing the newsletter on a weekly basis and
not a monthly basis from now on and that the message board needs some changes
made.
Patricia asked if there was any way that we could make the website more
fun. Cliff said that we would need a web designer for that and this is
something the charity could not afford at this stage but would definitely want
to do this in the future.
Simon also asked Cliff whether tutors could be able to download the new
forms from the website and Cliff said that this would be easy to do.
Chris Frederick also mentioned putting his questionnaire on the website.
13. Any other business
No other business was discussed.
The meeting then closed and refreshments were served.
Project News:
Tutor Seminar - 06.11.02: