aitutors·me GENIUS HOUR
Issue #2 · Wed, 30 Sept 2026   ·  Learn by asking

✍️  EDITOR'S NOTE

Editor's note

Three weeks in, and the homework battle has usually found its shape by now: the sigh, the "I don't get it", the parent who ends up doing the sum. This issue is one routine that takes twenty minutes and ends with your child having done the thinking. It works with our tutors and it works without them.

What time does homework actually happen in your house? Reply and tell me. I read every one.

Duke, editor

💡  TIP OF THE WEEK

The 20-minute homework loop

Most homework fights are not about the maths. They are about a tired child being asked to start a task they cannot see the end of, at the one hour of the day when nobody has anything left. The fix is not more time. It is a smaller, clearer task and a different first question.

Our Mentor opens every session with a colour, not a problem: green, amber or red. A red evening gets a five-minute review and an early stop. Nobody learns quadratics at red. Once the colour is set, the child names one sticking point, not a whole worksheet, and the tutor gives a hint, not an answer. The child does the last step themselves, every time.

If you would rather not referee it yourself, the Mentor runs exactly this loop and hands the sticking point to the right professor.

1.Ask the colour. "Green, amber or red?" Take the answer at face value. Red means ten minutes, then stop.
2.Pick one question. Not the sheet. "Which one are you stuck on?" That question becomes the whole session.
3.Hint, then step back. "What did you try?" "What would make it easier?" If you know the answer, keep it. The last step is theirs.
Ask the Mentor to run the energy check →

🤖  AI IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Why "just tell me" is the wrong request

Every chatbot is built to answer. Ask it for the solution and it will give a fluent, tidy one in two seconds. The trouble is that memory forms when the brain produces an answer, not when it reads one. Psychologists call it the generation effect, and it is the reason a child who copies a worked example forgets it by Friday.

So the useful skill is not prompting. It is asking for the step before the answer: "give me a hint", "what should I check first", "is my method right". Our tutors will not give the final answer at all, but even a general chatbot does better when the child asks that way.

Something to say: "Ask it what to check, not what the answer is."

More plain-English AI for parents →

🎓  UK EDUCATION WATCH

Three things moving this fortnight

Short, sourced, and what each one means at your kitchen table.

·Secondary applications close on 31 October; Year 6 families apply through their local council and grammar or 11+ preferences go on the same form. Source: GOV.UK, apply for a secondary school place. For you: the form is due a fortnight after most 11+ results, so put both dates on the calendar now.
·There is no national homework policy for England; schools set their own and most publish it on their website. Source: DfE guidance was withdrawn in 2012, so check your school's policy page. For you: if the load looks wrong, the school's own policy is the thing to quote at parents' evening.
·Ofsted's report cards replaced single-word grades last year, rating schools across several areas rather than one headline word. Source: Ofsted, school report cards, from November 2025. For you: read the curriculum and teaching line, not the summary, when comparing schools.

🧭  LEARNING GENIUS CORNER

The Social Dolphin does homework better with a person in the room

Some children go quiet and stuck when they are sent upstairs to work alone. That is not laziness. The Social Dolphin learns by talking, and a silent bedroom is the worst place for them. Try the loop above at the kitchen table, and let them explain the method to you or a younger sibling before they write it down. Teaching it is the revision.

Not sure which of the nine types your child is? The quiz takes four minutes, and they get a card to share with friends.

Take the Learning Genius quiz →

P.S. Know a parent living through the 7pm sigh? Forward this. They can get Genius Hour here

From The Mentor

Every session opens with “I see you”, after the Zulu greeting Sawubona. We meet the whole child first, then the homework.

Read this issue in Chinese

AI Tutors, London · hello@mail.aitutors.me
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