⏱ Monday 19th December 2022 

Craig and Jason Rose have been working with the Tutor Trust for over four years (eight years combined!) and have delivered more than 850 hours of tuition between them. For the past year Jason has been a Full-Time Tutor while Craig has tutored part-time alongside being a Brand Ambassador. They sat down together to reflect on their experiences and you can watch the recording of their conversation in the video. We also interviewed them over Summer on whether being twins has affected their experience of working with the Tutor Trust. You can read a transcript of this interview below.

 

Twins in conversation

 

Craig: That introduction sounds very professional considering you wrote it... Let’s start at the beginning! I remember being flyered outside the library at uni and using it as an excuse to read blogs on the Tutor Trust website instead of starting my essay. Maybe they didn’t give you a leaflet because they thought you’d had one already!

Jason: I remember finding out about the job from you. We were both looking for part-time jobs in our first year and you sent me a picture of the leaflet. I don't remember there being any competition there - there rarely is - but in this case we were applying to tutor different subjects.

Craig: It’s a good job that it wasn’t a competition because I was further along in the application process! Was it helpful knowing someone who’d already sent off an application and been interviewed?

Jason: In a way, you having got the job made my interview feel more make or break, knowing that you could do such rewarding work whilst studying. Turning up to the office on interview day was a strange experience because I was slightly aware that people might get confused and think there had been a double booking! [Editor’s note: We did! We really liked Craig at interview, and then to have him turn up again, just a couple of days later, caused great confusion at first . . .]. The good news was that I didn’t need to use Google Maps because you’d already been there.

Craig: I did get lost but luckily the office has moved since. It was the real-life equivalent of losing your Zoom link two minutes before a meeting…

 

Training Trouble

Jason: Even though we were doing different subjects, most of our training was at the same time. We’d meet after lectures and walk to the training together, which was nice! It’s always easy walking into a room of strangers when you’ve known one person in there for your whole life.

Craig: I remember that after a while one of us insisted that we sat on different tables! It’d be silly to walk to training separately but we didn’t want people to think we did everything together, like Patty and Selma from The Simpsons.

Jason: We went to a CPD after a few months of tutoring and it was ran by an external trainer. She was doing all of the standard icebreakers, asking if anyone already knows someone, then you came in and said, “well I’ve known him my whole life!”. She didn’t get it. The poor trainer didn’t get it at all! It was only afterwards when we left separate reviews on Facebook that it must have clicked, because she messaged us saying she hadn’t even seen a resemblance on the day!

Craig: I don’t actually remember that but it does sound like something I’d say! At least we both turned up to the training. I always get asked why we don’t just send one of us to represent us both! It does come in handy if I have trouble planning, especially now you’re trained to mark plans as a Full-Time Tutor!

 

Mr Rose and… Mr Rose

Jason: I got my first assignment before you though! Do you think that made it any easier for you to walk into yours, knowing that I had already done it?

Craig: I suppose it made me a bit less nervous. I was probably more annoyed than anything because you’d got your first assignment before me! Being trained in English meant I couldn’t have really got onto the same set of GCSE Maths boosters. Looking back, it did work quite well that we couldn’t hide behind each other in the same school...

Jason: Until our old Primary school asked us to come in and do some Y6 Maths!

Craig: I had to retrain for that, which is lucky because now I really enjoy working in primary! I suppose the school knew what to expect because they’d specifically asked to have us in - because it was our old school, not for weird twin reasons...

Jason: You worked more days than me so at least the pupils didn’t get confused between their tutors.

Craig: Apart from on Tuesdays! The assignment had to run on a first-name basis because the pupils talking to their teachers about ‘Mr Rose’ would start a whole new level of confusion!

 

Jason’s Legacy

Jason: Did you not consider applying for a full-time role when I did, or did you see it as an opportunity to get away?

Craig: The way I understood it, we’d have been applying for the same job and that’s a recipe for disaster. One of us would have ended up being the spectre at the celebratory meal.

Jason: Like when Chris and Liam Hemsworth both auditioned for Thor! Did anything change for you when I joined the full-time team?

Craig: Love the fact that you go for Thor and I go for Patty and Selma! It did give me a better idea of what was going on in the organisation! And I did start to get recognised on Zoom meetings as ‘Jason’s brother’...

Jason: Riding on the back of my reputation.

Craig: I wouldn’t go that far! I was doing my own work as a Brand Ambassador too… but I suppose it can’t have hurt! 

Jason: Well, you have just started as a full-time tutor so I can’t have done much to besmirch the family name.

Craig: I might even be in the same schools! I wonder if the staff notice anything different…

Craig and Jason now work in our office staff team as Schools Coordinators in Manchester. Craig is a key part of our Tutoring Plus Team while Jason works in our Manchester Secondary Schools Team.

Interested in joining us to transform lives through tutoring? If so, then you can find out more and apply here. 

Date of publication: 13/08/2021