Give and Gain: Resources That Work
In this QT Conversation, Julia Silver and members of the Qualified Tutor community come together to share the resources that genuinely support their tutoring and their businesses. Using a “give and gain” framework, each tutor brings something useful to share while identifying something they would like help with. The result is a practical, honest conversation covering subject resources, retrieval practice, online teaching, interactive tools, booking systems, content creation and professional development. The group recommends resources including CGP, Schofield & Sims, Bond, Maths Genie, Corbettmaths 5-a-day, Mathsbox, Physics & Maths Tutor, Revision Village, Save My Exams and BBC Bitesize. They also discuss Quizlet, Quizlet Live, Memrise, Kahoot, Padlet and Wordwall for flashcards, retrieval practice, games and interactive activities. For online tutoring, the conversation explores Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Zoom, Adobe Connect, TutorCruncher, OpenBoard, Pencil Spaces, ClassIn, FunClass and Lessonspace. Julia explains how she combines Zoom, Google Docs and Canva to create an attractive, flexible and highly interactive experience that can respond to the direction a session takes. The discussion also considers Riverside for recording, transcription and content creation; Google Drive and OneDrive for organising and sharing work; and Google Calendar, Outlook and Calendly for managing availability and bookings. Document cameras and graphics tablets are suggested as practical ways to preserve handwriting and written interaction during online sessions. But this episode is not simply a list of tools. The group asks a more important question: how do tutors decide which resources actually deserve their time and money? They consider accessibility, affordability, ease of use and whether a resource solves a genuine problem. There is a frank warning about the “subscription graveyard” created when attractive free trials turn into a collection of underused paid accounts. Julia also introduces the MoSCoW framework—must have, should have, could have and won’t have—as a way of prioritising resources and protecting limited capacity. The conversation returns throughout to the value of streamlined tools: resources that may not do everything, but do the important things well. It also acknowledges that even the best platform requires tutors to develop confidence, adapt it thoughtfully and “make it work” for their own practice and students. Above all, this session demonstrates reciprocity in action. Tutors are colleagues, not competitors, and sharing what works helps everyone make better decisions, strengthen their practice and avoid having to solve every problem alone.
