I met up with a friend last week, and I told her about how my son had fallen behind a little bit with his reading. Most of his class had been given a new reading book, but he and one or two others weren’t quite ready to move on yet. He felt like the odd one out and it upset him.
My friend suggested getting a private tutor to help him catch up. My son is 6, so obviously, I laughed in her face. But she was serious. She had used a platform called Tutorful to find an online tutor for her daughter (also 6) and it had really helped.
Now when I think about private tutors, I imagine a scruffy Uni graduate sat opposite a bored 16 year old who is being forced to do extra revision on a miserable Thursday evening. Apparently, this is no longer accurate .
I had no idea, but kids as young as 5 have private tutors, and they can be hired to teach anything from maths and English to theatre studies and psychology. I’m not suggesting you teach your 5 year old psychology, I only mean that the range of topics covered is massive.
So I gave it a go with my boy. A very lovely lady called Alice spent an hour helping him with his reading and his phonics (how she held his attention I don’t know), and by the end his confidence was through the roof.
So let me try to sell the idea of online tutors to you, because I was thoroughly impressed with the results.
Benefits of an Online Platform vs Going Local
Online platforms exist for everything these days: babysitters, dog walkers, tradesmen, even your love life – Tinder anyone?
When it comes to platforms for finding an online tutor, Tutorful is apparently one of the best. I’m sure there are a few to choose from but Tutorful is the only one I have used, so I can’t claim to have tested them all.
Anyway, you might be wondering why you would go for the online option over a 1 to 1 in person lesson in your home. Maybe you think your child would get more out of an in person session, or that the tutor won’t be able to do as good a job via a screen. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not 1998 anymore Grandma! 👵
Seriously, kids these days are used to screens. Heck, we all are. If Governments and billion dollar businesses can have important meetings over Zoom I think Alice from Sheffield can probably use it to impart a little bit of maths wisdom to help your child pass their GCSEs.
In fact, I think there are lots of benefits to finding a tutor online as opposed to hiring one to teach in person:
- Access to better tutors – Locally, you might have access to 5 or 10 tutors if you are lucky. Online, you have access to all of them. This is especially true if learning languages, because you can get a native speaker. Online, you can find the very best tutor, not just the best within a 5 mile radius.
- Privacy – This would put me off. I don’t like having people I don’t know in the house. Even if that’s not an issue for you, no one needs the pressure of cleaning, tidying or fumigating their house before a tutor arrives.
- Cost – Theoretically, booking an online tutor should be cheaper, because they don’t have to pay travel or account for travel time.
- Easier to bin them off – Yes, alright, I’m a bit of a chicken. But if it isn’t working, it’s soooo much easier to part ways with an online tutor than one standing in front of you. In your hallway. Possibly in tears.
- Recorded sessions – You could ask an in person tutor if they would mind you setting up your camera, but it might make them feel a bit awkward. Online sessions can be recorded and watched back for revision.
- Secure payments – You are paying through an online system, so you don’t need to remember to get cash out, you won’t ever lose track of what you have and haven’t paid, and all of your payments are recorded.
To be clear, I’m not talking about buying a ‘course’ or watching something pre-recorded. I’m talking about hiring a real, qualified, tutor who just happens to be in their home while they teach your child in yours.
The only down side I can see, is that it may take longer for the child to form a connection with the tutor online. Saying that, my son took no time at all to warm up to Alice, so it’s hardly a deal breaker.
How it Works
Have I convinced you?
If so, using the platform to find a tutor is really easy. I used Tutorful just because it’s the one my friend recommended, so I will take you through how they work, but I imagine they are all very similar.
First things first, you will need an account. Everyone knows how to create an online account so I won’t patronise you with this step. Just sign up and log in. You can do it, I believe in you 😉
Next, use the search bar on the home page and type in the lesson you are looking for: English, Phonics, Piano, whatever. You will then see something like this:
It’s great because it gives you a few key pieces of information about each tutor before you select one to look into further. You can see things like:
- Hours taught on the platform
- Hourly rate
- Qualifications
- Background checked and approved
- Number of repeat students
- Reviews and star rating
You can also create a favourites list to narrow down the candidates, as well as filtering by available time slots and a few other bits. It’s kind of like using a dating app… or so I’ve heard ðŸ¤ðŸ˜‡
Once you select a tutor you see their whole profile:
There is a lot more information on the profile and you can get a better feel for who the person is. This is also where you get in touch with them to book a lesson or ask any questions.
Online platforms have their own support staff too, so if you should run into any issues there is a middle man to help get things straightened out. Not that you should run into issues, a tutor’s livelihood rests on their reviews so they won’t want to annoy anyone.
When it’s time for the lesson itself, this is conducted inside a secure interactive classroom:
The tutor can share their screen, split the screen into sections, use a digital whiteboard, and you can both work on something at the same time which is pretty useful.
This is much more advanced than simply staring at each other on a bog standard Zoom call, it’s far more engaging than that.
The lessons are recorded and stored in your account too, so you can go over them in your own time if you like. I think there is a lot of added value in this, especially if you were covering something particularly challenging.
Cost: Is Private Tutoring Worth it?
A study by The Sutton Trust found that around 30% of children have had private tutoring at some point during their education. This just goes to show that it’s a route many parents go down to help their child keep pace. They obviously all think private tutoring is worth it.
Working one on one, outside a classroom environment, and with someone who is not a teacher is a very different experience for a child than learning in school. It’s more relaxed, social pressures and distractions are stripped away, and they get 100% of the tutor’s attention instead of 1/30th of a teacher’s attention.
Considering you can find tutors for as little as £25 per hour, I would say that is excellent value for money. Of course, affordability and value are not the same, so private tutors aren’t an option for everyone even if they are great value, I get that.
These things are relative, though, aren’t they? If you have the money and find the right tutor, I would say the cost is definitely worth it. If the cost is going to mean you can’t afford to put the heating on, maybe not so much.
However, there is hope even if you don’t have the money to pay for a tutor yourself.
An independent review of tutoring in schools found that one on one tutoring in schools can help students make up to five months of additional progress, and small group tutoring sessions up to 4 months. So if you can’t afford to pay for a tutor, you could approach the school and see what provisions they have in place? The Government have run tutoring programmes in the past, and they may well do again. If you do a bit of research there could be all sorts of levelling up funding out there to take advantage of.
This also highlights how effective a private tutor could be. If your child can make 4 to 5 months progress from tutoring in school, how much more progress could they make with a private tutor? If your child is struggling in a subject and you have a spare £25 or £30, I reckon hiring a tutor is money well spent.