Key points to consider when hiring a tutor!

Key points to consider when hiring a tutor.

Thinking of getting a tutor for your child? With the growing uncertainty of children’s education over the past year, home tutoring has become more widespread than ever.

With COVID, we have seen the tutoring industry forced to move towards a more online delivery model, rather than the traditional face-to-face approach. Both methods have positives and negatives, which we will explore in more detail below.

Online tutoring should be the cheaper option and will provide a more varied choice of tutors available, with ranging quality and experience.

The more traditional tutoring agencies, however, will provide slightly less choice and will cost more but will provide you with a much more tailored tutoring experience for your child with the potential for higher quality and experience.

Over lockdown, most traditional tutoring agencies have now developed an online offering, combining the best bits of the online and traditional tutor agency models.

How will they understand my child’s needs when choosing a tutor?
With online tutoring services, you can lack the personalisation that comes with traditional tutoring organisations. The onus is on the parent to decide who is the best tutor for their child, from reading the profiles that have been brought up in the search. Whilst this often gives more choice, it can sometimes be difficult to determine which tutor would be best for your child's learning style.

Traditional tutoring organisations should discuss with the parent the objectives of any programme and undertake an assessment with the child so we can create a shortlist of tutors. This initial assessment aims to find out how your child learns best, and it may also assess their current attainment level.

By understanding the learning styles that your child is attuned to, you can ensure lessons, play to your child's strengths.

How can I see what my child has been taught?
Most online tutoring companies will have recordings of every lesson done, a digital reference library of sorts in which you and your child can go back and revise/recap using these past lessons. This is a great advantage online tutoring has over face-to-face, as the ability to review information from a past lesson can be invaluable at revision time.

Some systems, including the one we use, allow searches across all the lessons undertaken, for specific words spoken or written and then rank them according to the precedence in each lesson. This enables the child to find relevant information quickly.

How will I know if the tutoring is making a difference?
All tutoring companies should be asking their tutor to write a report after each lesson on topics covered, the child's engagement and any homework they would like then to complete.

Some traditional tutoring organisations will create an individually tailored SMART learning plan and have regular reviews with the parents to monitor performance against this.

Typically, online-only tutoring will provide lesson only reviews, with a feedback box for your comments.

Can I get access to learning resources outside of lessons?

Using an online tuition service will provide you with more access to resources outside of lessons when compared to traditional tutoring. At the end of each lesson, a full transcription including any resources used is available to review in your own time. Each lesson is also added to a searchable lesson bank which again, can be accessed whenever required by the student.

Traditional tutoring providers struggle to match the detailed resources available from their online competitors, in that the child will only have access to notes they or the tutor made during the lesson.

Most tutoring organisations also provide access to study notes or other learning resources, which can be a useful form of additional information to the student.

At Tutori by using skilled professionals and by utilising some of the best technology in the marketplace, we can offer a personal service whilst encompassing the best features of online and traditional tutor delivery.

If you would like to find out how this would benefit you and your children, please contact us on 01245808189.