IB SEN Tuition Diary -- Harriet
- Ellie Reading
- Jan 28
- 3 min read
IB School Students with ADHD
Private Tutoring for Neurodiverse Students on English Language and Literature#IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
I’m going to tell you a story where identity is intentionally anonymous. The name, the details—blurred, reshaped, adjusted. But the core of it? That stays.
Let’s call her Harriet. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
She could sit still for hours, buried in literature, tracing the shape of an argument across the pages of a book. But writing with structure—that was another matter. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
“Why?” she asked. “Why must I follow this?”It wasn’t defiance. It was a genuine question.
And so, we talked. For over twenty hours, we talked. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
Every lesson was a conversation. Point, evidence, explanation, analysis.Then rebuttal. Counter-argument. Refinement.Not a script, but a habit—thought unfolding in real time.
It wasn’t about authority. It was about patience. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
Wait for her to think aloud.She wanted to say, "Complacency leads to stagnation and insufficient development."But what came out first was, "Peacefulness and lack of competition make people lazy." #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
If she wrote that in an exam, it would sound as if she were criticising peace instead of stagnation. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
Or take another example—when the syllabus asks students to reflect on the horrors of war, she might say, "War, though brutal, has at least contributed to technological progress."
She wasn’t trying to justify war—she was simply searching for a neutral, analytical approach. But without clarity, it could be misunderstood as an argument in favour of war, rather than a reflection on its consequences. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
Wait for her to think aloud. When she said, "I’m still thinking," she might contradict herself, mix up facts, lose her own thread.But experience told me she wasn’t lost—she was searching.My job wasn’t to interrupt. It was to remind, refine, wait. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
Wait for her to think aloud. Because this wasn’t a football match.No winning. No losing.Only two people—pushing toward clarity. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
And then, the transformation. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
Her vocabulary expanded.Her sentence structures sharpened.She picked up the words I suggested, readjusted, recalibrated, absorbed them into her own way of thinking.
And in the end, she wrote. Clearly. Strongly. Confidently.Level 9 in English Language. Level 9 in English Literature.Now studying Chinese A and English A in IB. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
But that wasn’t all. #IBSEN #ADHDTutoring #NeurodiverseEducation #IBEnglish #PrivateTutoring #SENSupport
For most IB students, the Individual Oral Commentary (IOC) is a nightmare—a test of literary analysis, spoken fluency, critical thinking, all under time pressure.
For Harriet? It was the easiest part of the assessment. Because she had already spent twenty hours doing exactly this. Thinking aloud. Structuring arguments. Speaking with confidence.
While others struggled to shape their thoughts, hers were already in motion.
Because thinking isn’t static. It moves, it bends, it unfolds.And for Harriet, learning wasn’t about being forced into a structure—it was about finding her own way into one.
