How will I select the best tutor for my child?

When you complete the website form telling us the subject, subject level, age group, and location (if face-to-face) for the tuition required, we provide you with a list of profiles of teachers who can offer tuition in the subject and level you are looking for and who are currently available.

Take your time reading through these teacher profiles, and when you are ready, you can invite teachers to contact you. Most parents invite 2 or 3 teachers, but you can choose more. You are not committing to any lessons at this stage; just having an initial chat to see if they are a good fit for your needs.

You may wish to generate further teacher lists for other subjects or consider different types of tuition. For example, if you want a greater choice of teachers, request an online teacher list.

When you invite a teacher to contact you, you can send them a note with any extra information, and you can expect them to e-mail, text or call you in the next day or two.

Our teachers are generally very reliable and good at contacting you within 24 to 48 hours, but if you do not receive a response from a teacher, please let us know, and we will follow up. Sometimes, a busy teacher does not see the e-mail, or it has gone into their spam or junk folder.

If you are unsure about what to say or what to ask your teacher when they make contact, please read this guide for your introductory call.

A guide to your introductory call

If you are in the process of choosing a tutor for your child, then it is a good idea to organise an initial introductory call or meeting with the tutor (face-to-face or online). This will enable you to learn more about their character, qualifications, experience and teaching style, and you will be better able to assess whether they are a good fit for your child.

How to structure an introductory phone call or initial meeting

This introductory call or initial meeting may take around 20 minutes. Feel free to include your child in this call (if they are of a suitable age) if you want to see if there is a good rapport between them and the teacher.

• Ask the tutor to introduce themselves to you in more detail and discuss their teaching style and experience.
• Discuss your child's needs and the purpose and ambition for the tuition.
• Provide the tutor with any further details they need regarding the role, such as your child's age and year group, school, current working level, relevant exam board or exam dates, and any specific SEN, EHCP, or diagnostic reports.
• Ask the tutor how they might initially assess your child and how they would implement a plan to measure progress.
• Be clear about your expectations around setting work and whether you want the tutor to provide and mark any structured homework.
• Please clarify whether you want the tutor to liaise directly with your child's school and class teacher.
• Confirm the timings, timescale, and tuition location if it is face-to-face.

Next steps

At the end of the call, confirm any next steps.

• If you decide that this tutor is the right fit for your tuition needs, you may wish to arrange a first lesson with them. If you want time to think about it, please tell the tutor you will get back to them by a specific date.
• If you decide on a first lesson, agree on a time and location that works for both of you and discuss what to expect from that first lesson.
• Establish some ground rules. You should be able to give 'reasonable' notice to your tutor should you need to cancel a lesson with them. Please clarify how you will communicate with your tutor if this happens (text, voicemail, e-mail, etc). Most tutors expect 24-hour notice, though they understand that giving 24 hours is not always possible (e.g. last-minute illness). This reasonable notice also applies if your tutor needs to cancel a lesson due to unforeseen circumstances.
• For safeguarding reasons, tuition should always occur in a supervised setting, i.e. with a parent, guardian, or carer present in the home, whether face-to-face or online.
• Confirm their availability for your preferred lesson times.

How do I know if I have chosen well?

Be around for the first few lessons and listen in on the teaching and learning.

Have a chat with your child after each lesson and watch their response. Though your child may initially be nervous or unenthusiastic, you should quickly begin to see a positive response.

With many years of experience teaching children one-to-one, we know children often make remarkable progress in only a few weeks. Ability, self-belief, confidence, enjoyment ... all begin to take root and grow.