From Tutor to Member: Coming Full Circle at Explore Learning

At Explore Learning, we love it when a journey comes full circle. Kirsty, who began her Explore career over a decade ago as a tutor and now leads several of our online teams as a Community Performance Manager, recently returned to the Darnley centre where it all started - this time as a parent, using our fully subsidised staff membership to bring her son for his very first trial session.

This benefit is designed to support our people and their families, and Kirsty’s experience shows the real impact it can have. Here, she shares what the journey meant for both her and her son:

"With my son starting school next year and him becoming more curious and eager to learn, I was really excited to be able to take advantage of the fully subsidised staff membership when he turned 4. This new benefit to staff is so useful and will not only benefit my son in preparing him to start primary school, but it is also helping me to experience our services as a parent, which is giving me a different perspective.

"The whole process of booking a trial was really straightforward - I chose to book at the Darnley centre, where I started myself as a tutor in early 2011, later becoming an Assistant Director in 2012. The Centre Director, Lawrence, reached out the day after I booked my trial to have a conversation about Dylan and what we were hoping to get from the membership. When we arrived, he was so welcoming and instantly made Dylan feel at ease, as well as myself and my husband. The way he engaged with Dylan and the work he did with him demonstrated solid active listening from our initial conversation, as well as what an expert he is in general!

Dylan loved the trial session and can't wait to get started this week. Lawrence got us all set up on the day and shared a login for Phonics Hero so we can start practising this at home, as well as Compass Maths. I've found it so interesting to go through the prospect journey and I'm looking forward to using Member Portal more as a parent, as well as understanding the customer comms journey. I think this will support me in thinking about how we can elevate the relationship between human and tech within Explore at Home, as well as hopefully supporting with testing things on the new member app!”