Advice for giving Grinds

SharpShoot

I am a maths Student Considering giving grinds to leaving cert students, and iv a couple of question about how to go about it

How much should i charge? Back when i got grinds i was charged 40 euro and hour which was crazy because the fella i got was rubbish.
i was thinking 15-20

Where should i advertise? Notice boards in supermarkets, bookshops, and the newspaper? or is that old-fashioned..

How big is the demand for maths grinds? what kinda standard should i set myself too.. (Im not a teacher after all)

how difficult is it to realistically give grinds?.. personally i think i would be good but i havnt done any yet so im not 100 % sure

Prodigious

€20 an hour is a reasonable. Don't advertise too big, tax man will go after you. Try giving a few free ones to some friends that are doing the leaving to see how you get on.
Difficulty of giving them really depends on the aptitude f the other person, as well as your patience and clarity.

RealJohn

Since you're not a teacher you'll be doing really well to get more than €20. From what I hear, parents are very slow to hire non-teachers at all these days.

spurious

Ask the student what methods their teacher uses for various questions and use the same method. Don't confuse them.
Know when to recognise if are out of your depth with a particular student and stop.
Make sure you keep your tax affairs in order.

rainbowtrout

SharpShoot wrote: »

I am a maths Student Considering giving grinds to leaving cert students, and iv a couple of question about how to go about it

How much should i charge? Back when i got grinds i was charged 40 euro and hour which was crazy because the fella i got was rubbish.
i was thinking 15-20

Where should i advertise? Notice boards in supermarkets, bookshops, and the newspaper? or is that old-fashioned..

How big is the demand for maths grinds? what kinda standard should i set myself too.. (Im not a teacher after all)

how difficult is it to realistically give grinds?.. personally i think i would be good but i havnt done any yet so im not 100 % sure

If you are going to be giving grinds to leaving cert students they will expect the same standard they would get if they went to a qualified teacher.

So you will have to be able to do whatever maths they need help with, be familiar with the course and be familiar with the exam papers and marking schemes.

shaz84

Hi

I have been following this thread. I am a medical student who is looking to give biology grinds. I'm just curious where the best place to advertise would be?

Thanks.

gaeilgebeo

shaz84 wrote: »

Hi

I have been following this thread. I am a medical student who is looking to give biology grinds. I'm just curious where the best place to advertise would be?

Thanks.

I would advise you to do a lot of work on the syllabi firstly.
You would also need to do a lot of work with the exam papers and marking schemes as you need to be able to teach exam technique.
There is not a huge demand for Biology grinds in comparison to English/Irish/Maths, but you could advertise in the local supermarket, online, on the thread in the Leaving Cert forum.

SharpShoot

spurious wrote: »

Ask the student what methods their teacher uses for various questions and use the same method. Don't confuse them.
Know when to recognise if are out of your depth with a particular student and stop.
Make sure you keep your tax affairs in order.

i over looked this aspect totally, what kind of tax affairs do i have to keep for a student earning 30 euro on a given Saturday

Geuze

SharpShoot wrote: »

I am a maths Student Considering giving grinds to leaving cert students,

How much should i charge? Back when i got grinds i was charged 40 euro and hour which was crazy because the fella i got was rubbish.
i was thinking 15-20

I don't give grinds, but some relations of mine do.

Rate is 30-35, but that is for a teacher with decades of experience.

Anybody can earn up to 15k approx tax free.

spurious

SharpShoot wrote: »

i over looked this aspect totally, what kind of tax affairs do i have to keep for a student earning 30 euro on a given Saturday

As a student I think you're allowed earn a few thousand before it has an effect on grants etc. - if that applies to you, check that out.
Revenue are apparently contacting some of the 'Grinds offered ads' that you get at the back of supermarkets and looking for evidence that tax is being paid on earnings.

They may not bother you at all, but be aware that they could, though if it's your sole source of income, I doubt you'll enter the tax net.

boogle

If you're going to give Maths grinds, make sure you familiarise yourself with the new Project Maths syllabus. Exam papers are different, some new elements to the course and some have been dropped.

With regard to demand, I'm constantly turning down grinds students. I'm a Maths teacher though.

playedalive

Hi there. I'm currently a final year college student in French and Spanish; I am currently giving Leaving Cert grinds in Higher Level French and Spanish. I know probably maths is a different ball game to languages. But I've a few tips.

1) When organising grinds, always organise it through the parent. Of course, if it's someone you know well and trust, that's ok. But, I've had problems with students not paying me my rate of 15€ a couple of years ago. (I mean 15€ is fairly reasonable given that teachers can charge 30-50€ an hour). I would either get 10€ or the 'Oh god, sorry I forgot. I'll pay next week'. I was pretty sure she was pocketing the extra fiver for her naggin at the weekend.

2) At the first session, maybe test him/her on the basics. For French, I would normally prepare ten sentences to be translated into French (testing verb conjugation, tense, sentence structure and vocabulary). From this, I could pick up the student's level of French. Also, for Leaving Cert particularly, I would spend 5 minutes talking just in French (asking basic questions, etc). From there, ask the student what they find difficult and conclude that with your own observations.

3) Preparation is key to a good session. I charge 20€ an hour. Within that hour, I would spend the first few minutes correcting grammar homework/translation of sentences. Also, I would clear up any problems/queries the student has. Then, I would go through the grammar lesson or exam topic/theory (Formal letter, opinion piece writing, etc). Sometimes, topics have to be spread over more than one session (ex. subjunctive or different past tenses). If necessary, we will translate some sentences together, based on the topic, to help the student understand. I would also try to spend the last few minutes on conversation practice (encouraging them to understand me and answer me in full sentences, writing down any mistakes/correction of accent). In short, I try to make each hour as varied as possible.

Hope this helps. Best of luck!