How to Successfully Choose Your Personal Tutors

Choosing a personal tutor for your children is something that you need to make sure you get right. The process can be made much more straightforward by simply asking some basic questions. The answers you receive can go a long way to ensuring that your child receives good personal tuition.

The decision to use a tutor to help your children can be motivated by several factors. Perhaps the child is slipping behind in school or needs help to overcome problems that may hamper future exam performance. When you have taken the decision to hire a tutor, though, it is important that you get it right.

Thankfully, there are many reputable service providers out there offering a great range of tutors with different skills. Filtering through the information given by these providers can often take a lot of time. However, by asking a series of targeted questions, it is possible to find the best tutor available for your child.

Safety and Awareness

-By far the most important thing to check about personal tutors is that they have been properly vetted when it comes to security. In the United Kingdom, every tutor must have undergone what used to be called a CRB check and has now been renamed as a DBS check.

-Whilst this is no absolute guarantee that the tutor will be safe, this check will show that they have committed no relevant offences in the past. A tutoring company will also carry out their own checks, but if a tutor is operating on their own, they must have proof of a clear DBS check.

Expertise and Qualifications

As well as security, it is crucial that a tutor has the relevant skills and expertise which is required to carry out their job effectively. There is little point in using a tutor who does not know enough about the subject being taught.

-Most agencies require tutors to have at least a degree and many may insist on a teaching qualification too.

-Whilst qualifications are no guarantee of skills, they do give a good indication of the kind of level of expertise someone actually possesses.

Experience and Insight

Having a degree and wide subject knowledge does not automatically mean that someone is a good teacher, however. It is always a good idea to ask if the tutor has had any direct teaching experience and where that experience was. This gives an insight into how theory has been put into practice.

-A teacher who has enjoyed success in economically deprived areas is often very skilled indeed, so do not be put off if a tutor has only worked in inner city schools rather than posh private institutions, where the challenges faced by teachers are often very different.

By asking these few basic questions, you can save yourself much hassle and stress. Personal tutors can make a huge difference to how your child progresses, so it is crucial that you make the right decision on their behalf.

AUTHOR BIO

Stan Liversedge is a former classroom teacher and current tutor who lives in Halifax, West Yorkshire. He also now writes, sharing his expertise about teaching and personal tutors with a wide range of educational blogs and websites, offering insight about a range of stakeholders in the profession, including Fleet Tutors.