Mumsnet Talk

Hi all,

I am new to Mumsnet. Just browsing quickly through the forums, I am pleasantly surprised at how active and helpful members are, so I hope someone will be able to help me out.

I am a mum to 2 secondary school kids. I am currently looking for a private tutor in maths and french for my elder son as he has been struggling with his grades recently and I want to make sure that he gets the right help before this gets any worse.

If anyone has any suggestions for a local tutor in the London area (someone preferably who doesn't charge too much £££), it would be most appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Sally

Hi! I can refer you to an excellent tutor, but he charges £40 per hour. Pls PM me if you would like his details anyway. He does home visits around most parts of London and maths is definitely one of his key areas, eg GCSE, IGCSE and A LEVEL, etc...
Good Luck!

I think you have to accept that good tutors are very busy and in high demand do they charge lots. Cheap tutors are often cheap for a reason.

We live up north.

We have an English tutor for DS2 (12) who is a secondary school teacher (she is currently not working due to being on maternity), she charges £20 per hour.

We also have DS1 (15) tutored for Maths. Now this is a Uni student in her final year. She charges £10 an hour. She does lots of prep for when he gets to her house and at the moment she is covering stuff for his next exam in March.

We do travel to both of these tutors though.

For French you could try contacting a local Uni and see if any language could help your DS. My DD went to a Kip McGrath centre for Maths from the summer of Yr6 to Easter of yr7 for Maths. DD scrapped a level 4 in KS2 SAT by Xmas in yr7 she was a 5C in School tests. With DD it was a confidence thing she is now on course for a wobbly A grade at GCSE. Kip McGrath is a franchise based company so alot depends on the owners etc. DD now goes to a private tuition centre for English which I found by googling.

I know a good maths tutor in N London PM if yiou want details

I use University Tutor to find local students who are looking for tutoring work. Loads in my area (north east) around £10 per hour. It's been very successful for us so it's worth a look.

Dear all,

Thank you for all the suggestions. Very helpful indeed!

Do you know anyone else in the class in the same situation? You could split the cost and it could still work well.

Hey Sally, if you are still interested in finding a cheap tutor have a look at www.studenttutor.co.uk . I used this for my son's private tuition and was v happy with the one we had.

G x

hello to all of you out there .I am in desperate need for a tutor to prepare my son for the 11+ entrance exam to wilson and wallington grammar for boys. thank you for help..i am so stressed about it.

A lot of tutors are advertised on the internet, but it's best to get a personal referral. I used to tutor 11 plus through an agency prior to doing my PGCE (University of Cambridge).

Good tutors are not cheap tutors I'm afraid. I charge £30 an hour for science and maths GCSE and A-level chemistry and a friend of mine who is an AST in maths charges £40.

You also need to be sure that the tutor is qualified- IMO there are lots of people tutoring who are not qualified teachers. This may suit some people, but as a former teacher I do become annoyed that any graduate thinks they can teach- when they may never have taught anyone, ever.

What you need to consider too is that the lesson is a part of what you pay for- there is preparation time for 1:1 tutoring, possible marking outside the lesson, and possible travelling.

I'm sorry but it annoys me no end that people will gladly hand over £50 an hour for a plumber, or haircut, but think that professionals like teachers should work for £15-£20 an hour.

p.s. One way to work out what tutor should charge is to know what their daily and hourly rate would be in the classroom. When I tutored I never charged less than that- which was £25 , years ago- because 1:1 is much more intensive and you actually need to prepare a lot more work than if you simply prepare one task for the class then set them to it.

If you are in a big city, the language courses provided by national cultural organisations are generally reliable and good value for money, and crucially, are taught by native speakers. Try Alliance Française.

I have got tutors from the First Tutors website and have been happy with them. Basically the tutors put their cvs online and they are rated by current users, I found that helpful in weeding out the experienced from the Uni students trying to earn a bit extra. You also see their photo which I found helps! You pay a small fee to "buy" the contact details and I haven't been disappointed so far. I have paid from £15 to £25 per hour.

BTW in my experience the only qualified teacher I hired was the weakest one, so I wouldn't necessarily be guided by that. I would look instead for experience in teaching the particular curriculum you are looking for - ie. Spanish GCSE or whatever. The best one we had was the cheapest, £15 for maths and she was quite a recent graduate working in a different field to education but an excellent teacher and communicator. I think mid June after the exams are finished would probably be a good time to start looking as many good tutors are probably booked up until then.

That was to b&b btw