Rise in students being tutors

[Daisypod]

I've noticed recently a rise in people advertising either for themselves or their kids to be tutors when they have just passed their GCSEs as they've done really well. This is for younger children now doing their GCSEs. I have nothing against this but they are charging almost the same as local qualified teachers who do tuition. As well as not being trained to tutor at just 16 they are unlikely to have the skills to teach or the depth of knowledge of their subjects even if they did get grade 8/9.
So
Yabu let them crack on
Yanbu helping out younger kids is great but setting yourself up as a proper tutor is taking the mick

I tutored when I was a masters student but I agree i wouldn't have charged the same as a qualified teacher. Being good at something doesn't mean you can teach others.

YANBU. We have a local tutor, one who is a well-known/highly thought of, ex-secondary teacher, pushing her 13yo daughter on people looking for tutors for 11+ and for babysitting. Doesn't sit right to me at all, especially as somebody who is highly regarded in the tutoring profession locally.

My son tutored some of his colleague's teens in Maths despite not having a teaching qualification nor a degree in Maths. He would have been mid 20s I suppose. He was really good and got the work by word of mouth after previous successes. The teacher whose pupil who got a C after being predicted E asked his parent for son's details to pass on to other parents.
That said dd has an EOTAS programme and the tutor agency LA use have sent me three TA's to consider who are all post grad uni students with none of the required knowledge or experience so a good job I insisted on seeing the CV's first.

Omg that's bad

Crack on, I say. My tutor group got better results than the teacher did by herself. I actually coached a girl to achieve a B grade, who the teacher tried to kick out of the class for underperforming, so I don't set much store by qualifications over aptitude and attitude.

Not disputing requirements level at all... if people want to pay that's fine. My answer was in reply to your comment of comparing your results to a teachers. You can't compare. A teacher can't focus 1:1 like you can, so obviously tutoring does improve outcome.

Try teaching that same student with 30 other kids at different levels.
Unless you've been there you can't possibly know how hard it is, not just with the different levels but with the constraints of being told how to teach and having to prove everything at every step of the way for the league tables.
Being able to coach someone one to one does not make someone a good teacher.
And some may well argue that these parents are paying for one to one so what does it matter. But what matters is that the qualified teacher will understand the mark scheme far better than someone who has recently achieved a grade 8 or A* or whatever.

What matters is a qualified teacher can look at a piece of work and say that yes it is nearly a grade 7 but what you need is to do XYZ. A qualified teacher may well even say to the child do you know what maybe you're better off doing foundation and getting a solid 5 rather than aiming for a 7 and risking failure by missing a few marks at higher tier. Because it's not always made clear to parents that if they're entered at the wrong level they risk failing.

Nope: no young person without any teaching qualifications is going to be on a par with an experienced teacher when it comes to providing private tuition. Who is checking and moderating how accurate their marking is, for starters? Exam boards don’t let NQTs mark exam papers for precisely this reason: they haven’t got the experience to understand exactly what is required for each grade boundary or the exam board’s specification. What training have they done that has taught them how to adapt for additional needs? Who has taught them to plan lessons? Checked the quality of their resources? Observed their pacing? Their use of questioning? The effectiveness of the homework set? How are they getting updates on curriculum changes?

I tutor but I’m fully qualified, have been a Head of Dept, an Advanced Skills Teacher, an exam marker, have written text books and have taught pretty much every single exam board’s syllabus for my subject. I’ve had to learn the best ways to teach pupils of every ability and additional need. There’s no way an 18 year old A-level student or graduate without classroom experience is going to be as effective and decisive as me at knowing the level at which to pitch things, the exact skills to be taught and the most effective way to teach them.

Re the hourly pay: I’m not just being paid for the hour. I’m being paid for the years of experience which inform what I do for that hour. If any of my students can find a newbie tutor for £30 who will do the same job as me, I’d be astounded at their good luck and tell them to book in!

There’s no harm in a sixth former / graduate charging to help a pupil brush up on some rusty bits, the same way as a knowledgable parent. I don’t view these tutors as competition. Just remember that virtually no parents would be happy with a school employing an 18 year old / unqualified LSA to teaching their child a core GCSE subject at GCSE. They’d all be relieved if their child was in a class with a really experienced qualified teacher…

I find this thread quite sad and it seems an indictment of generally poor teaching in schools. My DD who has a master's in chemical engineering has helped family friends children with maths, physics and chemistry ranging from 11+ to A level and cannot believe the lack of knowledge of most.
She has honestly laughed at some of the methods they have been taught and all the parents have thanked her, she doesn't charge as they are friends, well maybe a shared pizza at the end of an hour or so.
Are our schools really that bad or are private tutors, irrespective of age, really that good ?

@Elfer13 my dd went to a top grammar school and tutors those that didn't, and the difference in terms of exam strategy, knowledge of the curriculum spec, as well as content is like night and day. She tutors them to the grammar standard and they have got fantastic grades, as she has herself.

@BrightGreenMoonBuggy you sound like a great tutor, you must realise a lot of teachers doing tutoring aren't similar in their qualifications and experience to you. I know which of my uni students who go into teaching, and they are not the top students in the main by any means. In some other countries, getting top grades is a prerequisite for teacher training.

I think there's a lot more to teaching than top grades, but if you have a bright pupil who just needs pushing over the grade boundaries into the really high grades, then I'd get a recent high achieving student with a great interpersonal manner to do that, indeed I have and it worked very well. No need to pay for a HoD/exam marker for that type of input, for students with more difficulties, or special needs, that's a whole different kettle of fish, but again, not all teachers at secondary are great with students with learning difficulty anyway.

Nobody's forcing anyone to hire them. I charge £50 an hour and I'm not forcing anyone to hire me either. As long as they're not lying about qualifications and experience, I what's the problem?

My daughter had a Durham student doing math tutor her for a few lessons coming up to GCSEs. He charged £20/hour I think, well below professional tutors. I'm not sure someone who's just done their GCSEs would be good enough- maybe to tutor much younger pupils.

Who is checking and moderating how accurate their marking is, for starters? Exam boards don’t let NQTs mark exam papers for precisely this reason: they haven’t got the experience to understand exactly what is required for each grade boundary or the exam board’s specification.

In fairness, as a parent I'm able to have a decent effort at marking many of my kids' GCSE exam papers with the mark schemes the exam boards provide. Not so much for History and English but the students being tutored will still have their in-school work marked as a cross-check.

But you raise a fair question. My kids are at an academically selective private school. My older son's English teacher marked papers very differently to my younger son's (who's also been an exam marker).

The younger son's teacher circulated examples of '9' essays amongst her students for each assignment. Having helped my older son and spent time reading the examiner's reports and guidance online, I was surprised some were marked so highly given they were more a summary of the plot than analysis and insight. My older son's teacher would have marked them more harshly for that reason.

When the marks came in, my younger son's (top) set had performed below expectations and their mock performances. My older son's (also top) set were the opposite. Yet both teachers are in the same department at the same school. Clearly there's a difference in the way the teachers were marking so there's not always consistency.

I've been slightly surprised to see a proliferation of these adverts.

But this thread has made me think....my son is bright and generally finishes even the extension work long before the rest of the class. As a result his teachers, since the beginning of junior school at least, having been using him to help coach the struggling children in his class.... So actually by the time he is at a level stage he will have a lot of experience of 'tutoring'. I would rather the teachers gave him extension work more of the time, but I think it would be hypocritical of them to be happy to use him as a de facto tutor in the class room but suggest he couldn't equally do this outside school hours... I mean they gleefully tell me about using him this way at parents evening (and I do see the advantages, to a degree, its a good life skill)

We pay for private (qualified)tutors as he likes the extra stretch on top of school (they might do greater depth, or areas outside the curriculum)... But I might suggest he considers tutoring as a pocket money earner in the future, and he can thank all the teachers who were happy to use him this way in the classroom for giving him so much experience

The ‘helping’ others who are struggling in class is actually a teaching technique- for both pupils.. so the teacher isn’t doing it because they think your child can teach the info from the lesson, rather consolidate and extend knowledge/understanding. It’s why mixed ability is far more popular now.

finishing work and extension tasks quickly isn’t always a good thing either. I’m sure your son is bright but this reasoning is off.

The reasoning isn't off at all. He finishes quickly and with top marks. I can see if he rushed it and did badly it would be a concern, of course. But that's not the case here.

I also get that it's a "teaching technique" that is well favoured at the minute. But certainly doesn't just benefit my child, it also benefits the teacher and the struggling child. I am glad he is learning coaching /teaching skills and I am sure it will stand him in good stead. So I don't totally mind (although I think the reluctance of some teachers to stretch the brightest is a concern.. interestingly I find the teachers who were themselves very bright at school are quite happy to stretch bright children... I am lucky we can pay for tutors/books/interesting trips etc but not everyone has those options)

However, my point in relation to this thread is that, on reflection, if teachers are happy to use bright children in this way in the classroom then why shouldn't those children then benefit from the experience by offering paid-for tutoring outside the classroom?

It does actually benefit your child. Research demonstrates that, even for bright pupils, this kind of collaboration aids their learning and growth. There can be additional talks helping to develop skills in these collaborations.

Although it seems you’ve already decided that your son is some kind of second teacher. He isn’t. He won’t have a clear understanding of the curriculum, the clear requirements, the marking knowledge and the ability to differentiate materials and tasks.

I have dealt with pupils who have younger tutors teaching unnecessary material and basically helping to write course work - which goes against all of the guidelines. I can only hope that they’re naive rather than deliberately choosing not to adhere to guidelines. It also makes me more nervous when discussion of no exams are had.

But, as I said, you seem to be sure your son is almost another teacher even though he is still at school. So I’m sure you’ll think he’d be totally fine doing many of the above.

I wouldnt choose a teen to teach my child. I am just making the point that if teachers are happy to use students as teaching assistants in class then they can't be surprised when some decide they are more than able to charge to do the same.

I agree it benefits my child. I agree learning to explain concepts clearly is a good life skill. But I think there should be a better balance sometimes between stretching them and using them. Some teachers spend very little time on the brightest, preferring to use them. The very good (and generally also very bright) teachers know there needs to be a fair balance.

I'm so tired I thought the title said being "Tudors" and thought there was some new weird crazy where kids run about pretending to be Henry VIII....

Time for bed 😫

Agreed. My son offered other A-level students free help with any topics they found hard. Big take up.

I did, way back, when I was sixteen. The sixteen year old who will be a maths grad is just as good at maths when she is sixteen. And having done the GCSE only two years ago herself, recalls the topics better then she will as a twenty year old grad.