RAPPORT
Issue 5 (August 2020)
different specialist awards. Different
activities to reflect upon, to become more
scholarly in, to develop a learning
community about, and so on.
But there are also some award-specific
competences; specified to, in this case,
tutoring. They include:
• Support and guide students, taking into
account the framework of the institution
and the various policies, systems and
processes of both the institution and HE
• Analyse and apply relevant research,
literature and theory to inform, evaluate
and enhance practice
• Apply appropriate skills when dealing
with students, either in a personal or
academic context, taking into
consideration the diverse backgrounds
and needs of learners.
So, attention to context; again to
scholarship and its application; and,
crucially, to the particular individual with
whom the tutor is working.
There is a skill to writing such
qualifications frameworks. They need to
be clear enough to act as a goal for
people new to the profession; both
aspirational and attainable; recognisable
as an account of what professionals do;
brief enough to allow every professional
to devise their own way of achieving
them; and acceptable to the users, the
clients, of the profession, in this case to
students.
But there is a much greater skill involved
in using them.
A personal overview of the
papers
The editorial reviews each paper in more
detail. But here’s what I see in the papers:
Emma Heron digs deep into one
essential strand of tutoring – listening.
Emma gives a thoughtful, scholarly,
accessible account what at first may
sound easy and obvious – the need to
listen. This is a particularly important
message to give to tutors who are also
teachers, whose primary professional
identity may be more closely wrapped up
in telling than in listening.
Cathy Malone provides evidenceinformed
guidance which we can all use
to enrich and improve our tutoring. Like
Emma, she reveals some of the
complexities of tutoring, but does not stop
at problematising, knowing that readers
will also want, if not complete solutions,
then at any rate ways forward.
Charlotte Coleman has a very particular
take on tutoring – tutoring, almost
inevitably at a distance, of students who
are undertaking work placements. Like
other writers here, Charlotte offers us
evidence-based guidance on practice.
Rob Ward gives a detailed and valuable
account of two concepts adjacent to
tutoring – coaching and mentoring. He
inevitably spends some time on
definitions, but then builds on these to
suggest, again, implications for practice,
practice that, unbounded by definitions, is
appropriate to the student, to the setting,
reminding us again that tutoring,
coaching, mentoring and other forms of
student support are, essentially,
individual.
Ricky Lowes takes a step or two back
from frontline practice of tutoring, and
explores the policies, strategies and
structures which can support; or, on a bad
day, impede; the effectiveness of tutoring.
Tutoring may be at heart an individual act,
but Ricky usefully reminds us that it does
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