If you’ve never considered a tutor for your child before, it can be a bit daunting to know where to start. The following will give you some pointers to ask the right questions. We’ll discuss the various options available and additional things to think about. Many of our clients have never had a tutor before and find our advice helpful.
What are the options?
There are a number of options to consider:
- One-to-one tuition
- In your home
- At the tutor’s home
- Group tuition
One-to-one tuition
One-to-one tuition is one tutor working directly with your child. This ensures that the teaching is focused entirely on the needs of your child, rather than being split across a group of students with potentially very different needs. This is felt to be the gold standard of tutoring, however, it does of course, as with all tutoring, hinge entirely on how good the tutor is. This can be in your home or at the tutor’s home.
If the tutoring takes place in your home, you know that your child is in a safe environment, you have greater oversight over what is being taught and it is often more convenient, especially if you have a busy schedule and/or other children. At Tutor My Kids, our tutors in Cambridge, Ely and surrounding areas, always see clients in their homes as we think that this gives the best results.
Many tutors prefer to tutor in their homes because they can tutor a greater number of students in the time they have available. There are undoubtedly some great tutors who tutor from their own homes. Over the years, however, we’ve had a few horror stories: One parent was regularly collecting her daughter from the tutor and finding her sitting at a computer playing a (good and useful) word game, but one that she could have done at home to supplement the tuition, but not as tuition. Since she swapped to Tutor My Kids and the tutor comes to her in Cambridge, she knows exactly what her daughter is learning. Another client felt that her daughter wasn’t getting the best focus from visiting her tutor in Ely at his home because the house was noisy and there were interruptions from his children.
Group tuition
Group tuition scores because it is a more cost-effective option that one-to-one tuition, but there is, of course, a dilution of the focus of your child, especially if their needs are different from the children around them or there are stronger personalities in the group. Potential problems can also occur with focus on areas that are not needed and not enough focus on the areas that your child needs. For example, we worked with a year 4 student who was regularly attending a training centre and her ability to manipulate numbers was very impressive, but when Tutor My Kids assessed her, it revealed some very significant gaps in her maths understanding, which was resulting in poor scores in her tests at school. Her mum and dad thought they were helping her, but it wasn’t addressing the problems that she had.
With group tuition it is very hard to tailor the tuition to the individual student and often the curriculum taught is fixed with the whole group moving onto the next lesson, whether or not it has been understood by all the students.
Additional things to think about
As already discussed, whichever options you look at, they are as good as the tutor who is working with your child. It’s always wise to take-up recommendations where possible. At Tutor My Kids we’re incredibly grateful that most of our clients come in from recommendations from friends and family who are seeing the benefits of working with our amazing tutors in Cambridge and Ely areas.
It’s important also that you know who you’re letting into your home. If you’re not working with an agency such as Tutor My Kids who vet their tutors thoroughly, do ensure that they are DBS checked. In addition, we always insist that there is an adult in the house whilst tuition is occurring and that it happens in a family-friendly, downstairs room, such as a kitchen or dining room.
At Tutor My Kids, most of our tutors are qualified teachers because we know that they have more experience of teaching in a variety of ways to help students understand. It’s certainly worth asking about the background of any potential tutor. If the tutor is for your primary-aged child, this is particularly key as not following the methodologies taught in school can cause further confusion, rather than providing help.
Get in touch
For a free, informal discussion with Tutor My Kids about getting a tutor in Cambridge, Ely, Huntingdon and surrounding areas, please contact us at hello@tutormykids.co.uk to arrange a time to chat.