Fit Learning NI launched to help children’s education after pandemic

With students across Northern Ireland losing out on 61 days of schooling over the past 12 months and the continued disruption to the school year due to Covid-19, a tutoring service has been launched that aims to help children and young people catch up.

Fit Learning NI, is aligned with the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum from Foundation Stage through to Key Stages 1 and 2, and helps learners build fluency in a range of core academic skills by combining learning science, precision teaching and curriculum-based assessment.

Fit Learning was established in 1998 by Dr Kimberley Berens when she was a graduate student at the University of Reno, Nevada and over the last 23 years, the Fit Learning model has been implemented in over 30 locations around the world including the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe.

In a first for Northern Ireland, the service has been launched by Louise Begley from Newtownards who has over 10 years’ experience of working with children from all educational backgrounds including learning disabilities, autism, ADHD and learning difficulties.

She explained: “The education children receive during their early school years is vital and it gives them the basic foundation of learning in the classroom, but also should give them the skills to take into their wider community. The last 18 months have been very hard for children of all ages with the disruption they’ve had due to schools being closed and remote learning. And unfortunately, this disruption has continued into the new school year with thousands of pupils across Northern Ireland having to miss school due to having to quarantine.

“A recent survey from the Institute of Fiscal Studies has shown that a third of primary school parents believe it will take a year or more for their child’s education to recover from the pandemic whilst nine per cent of secondary school parents think that their child will never catch-up from the lost learning.

“At Fit Learning NI, we work with children on a one-to-basis, through fun, interactive virtual sessions meaning no downtime, on their reading to help them improve phonics, phonemic awareness, oral and silent reading, comprehension, spelling and vocabulary. Through a science of learning, we consistently achieve one year of academic growth in only 40 hours of one-to-one instruction. The positive difference that this makes to a child’s education, and their confidence, is just remarkable and truly transformative.”

For information go to www.fitlearners.com/centers/belfast

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