Small Group Tutorials

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How Can Three Students Share a Class Without Receiving the Same Teaching?

Three students can work on the same idea without needing the same teaching move.

The shared lesson gives the class a common intellectual centre. The tutor then changes the support around that centre according to what each learner’s work reveals.

Same idea. Different weak link. Different next question.

Personalisation does not require three separate curricula

Suppose all three students are learning percentage change.

Student A understands the relationship but keeps choosing the wrong reference quantity. Student B understands routine examples but becomes lost when the wording changes. Student C is secure and needs a more unfamiliar problem to test transfer.

The class can begin together. Then the tutor branches the work: one student gets a representation check, one gets a changed-context question, one gets greater difficulty. When the underlying idea is stable enough, the class can rejoin around explanation or comparison.

This branch-and-rejoin pattern is different from simply giving three worksheets of different difficulty.

The support can change even when the question does not

Sometimes all three students can answer the same question, but the teaching differs in how much help is supplied.

One student may be asked to explain the question before solving it.
Another may receive a visual representation.
Another may have the usual prompt removed.
One may be asked to check a peer’s reasoning rather than redo the problem.
Another may be asked whether the same relationship survives different numbers or context.

The unit of personalisation is therefore not always the worksheet. It can be the question, prompt, representation, delay, comparison or level of independence.

A strong student should not become the assistant teacher

Peer explanation can be useful. It should not become a hidden system in which one child spends the lesson carrying another.

The tutor remains responsible for the teaching. When students explain to one another, the purpose is to make reasoning visible, test clarity and create comparison—not to outsource instruction.

A learner who needs repair should not be publicly labelled as “behind”

Students can need different work without turning the class into a ranking.

One learner may need foundation repair in fractions and be the strongest reader in the room. Another may be fast on routine algebra but fragile in transfer. Capability is multi-dimensional and changes over time.

The tutor can branch work quietly, without making every adjustment a status announcement.

The class should still feel shared

If all three learners spend every lesson on unrelated material, the benefits of the group begin to disappear.

A useful small class creates moments of common attention: a question worth comparing, a misconception that reveals something, a method that can be discussed, a short explanation that everyone can test.

Shared learning produces contrast. Personalisation decides what each learner should do with that contrast.

How the tutor decides who needs what

The decision should come from observable work rather than personality impressions.

Can the learner start independently?
What representation do they choose?
Where does the reasoning first become unreliable?
What happens after a prompt?
Does the correction survive later?
Can the idea transfer to a changed question?
Is the learner ready for less support or a larger problem space?

The next parent page, What Is a Tutor Actually Watching While a Student Works?, owns that observation job in detail.

What this page does not mean

This page does not claim that every three-student class can accommodate unlimited differences in level or need. If the learning routes are too far apart, another grouping or format may be more appropriate.

It also does not mean students never complete common practice. Sometimes everyone needs the same foundation. The question is whether the tutor can see when sameness remains useful and when it stops being useful.