FIVE Magazine YB - VOL2 | Page 38

LONDON BUSINESS PROFILE 38 yourBusiness Canadian After School Tutoring Company Has Home-Grown Roots M ost Canadian parents have at one time or another heard the name Oxford Learning, and not just because after-school tutoring is increasingly becoming an educational must-have. For parents in London, ON this is even more true: that’s because Canada’s oldest after-school supplemental education provider was founded right here in London in 1984. For nearly 30 years Oxford Learning has been helping London students overcome their school struggles and get better grades. Unlike the other tutoring options available, Oxford Learning’s programs are founded on the science of cognitive development. This means that rather than simply teaching kids to overcome a problem in math (or any subject), Oxford Learning gets to the root of the problem, helping students improve their overall learning abilities. The result? Students don’t just have better skills in math (or any subject) for right now, they have better skills in any subject for life. It’s a fundamental difference in the approach to not only the concept of tutoring, but to real learning, and it’s the reason that Oxford Learning has been a successful part of the London community for so long. It’s also why Oxford Learning has grown to become a fixture in in communities all across Canada, the US, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Oxford Learning founder and CEO Dr. Nick Whitehead says that the Oxford Learning program model is developed to build individual thinking skills in children so that they can think more efficiently, learn more effectively, so that their confidence grows, their self esteem flourishes, and their marks get better. Before Oxford Learning began, Dr. Whitehead was part of ongoing cognitive studies into how children learn. As a direct result of these studies, he created a program that introduced specific skills to children when they were ready to learn them. The program streams are skill-based rather than subject-based or grade-based, so that students are working on specific skills rather than the curriculum expectations of specific grades. Programs are chosen based on the results of an in depth dynamic assessment tool that not only shows what children know, but also how they learn. “We have built proprietary curriculum for all of our programs, which sets us apart from our competitors. They use the same curriculum that you can buy at any educational supply store,“ he said. “What we teach and how we teach is unique. We work on the theory that kids have problems learning because of how they learn. Our teaching system gets away from memorization and stresses comprehension and understanding—those important underlying cognitive learning skills first, then math and reading, and other school subjects.” Online | VOLUME 1 - ISSUE 2