private tutors

[nappyaddict]

can anyone be a tutor or do you need to have some sort of teaching qualification?

[Blandmum]

I don't think that there is any regulatory body.

Don't know how many people would use a tutor without formal qualifications though. Unless it was in a vocational subject, and the tutor had masses of experience iyswim

[islandofsodor]

Absolutely anybody can set themselves up as a tutor in any subject.

[nappyaddict]

well basically my neighbour does children's french classes on saturdays and sundays but she used to be a teacher. i am doing a spanish degree atm and would quite like to do something similar to her after i have graduated but have no interest to do a pgce or anything like that as i don't want to actually be a teacher.

[roisin]

Most parents want a tutor to improve their children's predicted grades, (rather than to generally improve their literacy or numeracy or whatever). The best tutors to provide this are those that know the curriculum, marking schemes and assessment objectives of the relevant exams.

[Blandmum]

Depends if it were Smanish for fun' IYSWIM or to pass GCSE spanish.

As rosin says, most people get tutors to bump up their kid's grades. To do that you obviously need to be good at the subject, which you would be, but you also need to know how the exam board 'plays the game' IYSWIM.

I don't doubt that you could mug up on the stuff, it isn't that hard. But people might wnt someone who is already /has been a teacher

[nappyaddict]

i was thinking along the lines of spanish for fun for primary school aged kids who actually want to learn it and be there. that is why i am put off teaching - so many of the children just don't want to be there!

[MrsWho]

I would send my kids to someone who wasn't a teacher to learn languages for fun.
You would need police checks too.

[sixthformmum]

Depends on subject, a friend does maths and science tutoring has an excellent knowledge of the subjects wider than the syllabus but has no formal teaching qualification. He doesn't advertise though just gets passed on from family to family.

I am not a great advocate of the police checks as they are misused (not followed up by reference checks or personal knowledge etc). At DD's school many of the parents have known each other and many of the teachers since childhood and have helped in school over the years but newish head teacher (bit pompous and not brightest of bunch) is now insisting on it. I couldn't be bothered as it would have taken hours to fill in forms and find relevant certificates so just stopped going in.