Struggling with home-schooling and worried about your child falling behind? Thinking of getting some help? Here’s our quick guide to choosing a private tutor:
Quick fix or broader work? Decide whether your child needs help with a specific issue or something broader. A maths tutor can be suitable for last minute GCSE help, but possibly not if they are generally struggling to keep up, have lost learning across the subjects or have learning confidence issues.
Individual, group or workshop? One to one tuition can be great for quick fixes and specific issues but is more expensive and can be very intense for your child. If you opt for group or workshop style tuition, check how big the group is and what sort of format the group will follow.
Tutor experience and qualifications. Make sure you meet your prospective tutor and find out how much experience of tutoring children they have. What are their qualifications? Do they have teaching and tutoring experience? They should have an up to date understanding of the school curriculum. A PhD in maths might sound impressive but is no good if they have no idea about GCSE maths and no experience of working with children.
Their tutoring materials. Again, their materials need to be aligned with and support the national curriculum and you should ask what materials they will use. Have they downloaded them from BBC Bitesize or are they relying solely on back copies of past GCSE papers? Have they developed their own and if so, how have they developed them?
Assessing your child. You need to ask how they will assess your child so that the tuition is tailored to meet their specific requirements and is not generic for the group. Don’t forget to ask what sort of feedback they’ll provide too and how often.
Coping with COVID and beyond. As most face-to-face style meetings are not allowed at the moment, it’s essential to ask how the tutor will deliver their tutoring online. Teams and Zoom are one thing but what thought have they given to making the tuition interactive and engaging? And what will happen when lockdown ends? Will they continue online? At their home? Do they have a workshop venue?
At MagiKats our tuition is delivered by way of affordable workshops. Each child is individually assessed so that a tutoring package can be designed specifically for them and we provide regular feedback. Our materials have been developed by our team of experienced teachers who have a thorough understanding of all the curriculums used across the UK and know the skills needed by your child. We’ve been providing private tuition for over 17 years and since the start of pandemic we have invested in technology and training to ensure our Tuition Centres can continue to deliver online workshops in an engaging way. All staff at MagiKats are appropriately qualified, experienced and checked. Use our Find A Centre tool to contact your local Principal.
