With January exams coming up, many high school students are looking for a way to help them boost their marks.
Over the next two weekends, a group of university students will help high schoolers get that edge through Students Offering Support (SOS), a series of interactive course review sessions at the University of Toronto. The sessions not only help students with their classes, they have the added benefit of helping others in developing countries.The SOS program originated in Waterloo as a means of helping university students with their courses. In the ensuing years, the program has expanded to London and Toronto, with tutors helping high school students in addition to those in post-secondary schools.The University of Toronto sessions will focus primarily on science and math classes, with Grade 10 history and Grade 9 French tutorials also offered."We cover all the material the students have studied all year," said Robyn Walter, co-president of the U of T SOS chapter. "It's mostly targeted at semestered schools who have exams coming up, but it's helpful for all schools."Walter said math and science are the focal point because their curricula are the most universal - students in English and other liberal arts classes often have different reading materials, making it impossible to come up with a course outline that applies to all students.Tutors will include 10 U of T students and one from York University well-versed in the subject matter for each of the 14 courses offered. With class sizes limited to between 20 and 25 high school students per session, applications will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis.Walter said the sessions will last three hours apiece, with courses offered once apiece on the weekend of Jan. 16 and 17 and once each on the following weekend."Students can come down either weekend, and we have sessions at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. so they can try to work it in around their schedules," she said.The courses are $25 each, but all money raised goes toward a project that will see SOS volunteers build a school in a developing Latin American country this summer."We're still deciding on the specific project, but it will be a sustainable, education-based development project," Walter said.Since its founding in 2004, SOS has tutored over 4,000 university and high school students, which has allowed the initiative to raise over $240,000 for international education projects.For more information on the courses offered or details on how to register, visit www.soshighschool.com