To think everyone seems to be offering tuition?

[MsTuition]

I've been a qualified teacher for over 7 years and at times I have offered both online and in person tuition - all fine, was paid between 30-35per hour and students and parents happy. I haven't gone back to it since becoming pregnant but have been thinking about doing it again as I'm no longer in full time work, however, I am seeing LOADS and I mean so many posts shared in my whatsapp groups of people offering tuition, sometimes at incredibly low prices. It feels like a race to the bottom. I guess right now a lot of people are looking for the side hustle and desperate to get those clients.

Sometimes I dig a bit deeper and find out the person offering tuition isn't a teacher but a sixth form student or uni student or sometimes its online tuition but in a mix ability group (honestly can't imagine that working out well) but cheaper prices.

Curious to hear from parents who do use tutors for their children are you finding cheaper and cheaper options or being spoilt for choice? Not sure I want to bother trying to market myself as a qualified experienced teacher/ tutor if it's a crowded market.

We pay £40 an hour for our son’s tuition via Kip McGrath. It’s a qualified teacher, and he loves going. It’s in an open plan teaching centre which makes me more comfortable than him sitting alone with an unrelated adult

I’m a teacher (in my twentieth year) and I tutor. I got my tutors by sticking a post on my personal facebook page and asking friends to share it. A week later I had more than I wanted. I charge £30 an hour. I obviously do mine on top of full time teaching but I have two friends who do it full time and one who teaches three days and tutors two days. It might be different in different areas - I’m in the south east.

My daughter is being tutored currently in Y4. We pay £15 an hour with a qualified teacher, in a small group of 6. This works well for my daughter as she didn’t want the intensity of 1:1. This price obviously works well for us. I think this is the way many tutors are going to be able to charge less but just in groups
instead.

Choice is a good thing. Not everyone can afford £40 upwards and some help is better than none. Or should the poor folk know their place.

I'm a full-time (6-8 hours a day, 6 days a week) tutor in London. I don't have QTS but have taught overseas at university level and have a lot of experience so I charge £45 an hour. It feels like too high a price to me but charging less would make me look unprofessional. If anyone ever told me they were struggling to afford it, I would happily lower my price.
I think you could/should be charging more really OP.

I don't really think the market is saturated - 100% of my students come from word of mouth now and there is always more need than provision. I do think there are a lot of inexperienced or less capable tutors out there though, I get messages asking me to take on someone new at least once a week throughout the year, often because a previous tutor hasn't worked out.

My daughter attends online group tutorials. They are pre-planned (by the teacher) and targeted at a certain age range, but not 1 on 1.
They are ‘purchased’ in sets of 5 each half term and the average cost is £20 per 45 minutes.
The teacher is highly skilled and makes the sessions fun and informative. They are also always fully booked!

Hope this helps!

We dont use a tutor but if we did it it would be to have a person to help them with what they mostly knew rather than needing to re teach or take an f to an a type thing

So I would feel I would not need to pay top money for a qualified teacher

As long as they are honest about their qualifications, I don't see the issue. You will get the people who feel paying more will give better quality and you will also get the people who are happy to try anything or just looking for a bargain.
I think it also depends on what you're tutoring; is it specific advanced subject knowledge or is it just general maths/literacy at primary level?
Private tutoring is a business and you've got to think of your target customers and the demographics of your area. If you just wanted your child to have a bit of catch up help at primary, you probably wouldn't pay as much as for A level tutoring. If you live in a less affluent area, people may be more likely to go for the cheaper option than if you are in a more affluent area. You've also got to think of your own aims for business; is this something you would potentially want to become your main income, or is this just a little side hustle to earn a bit of spending money? This also affects whether you invest in marketing, which may give you an edge on other less formal competitors.

Wow no DS’ tutor is £50/hour, I definitely wouldn’t class that as cheap! For comparison I’m a singing teacher and we charge £42/hour (I see £29 of that as the rest goes ‘to the house’ so to speak).

There’s a block booking discount and we are looking to go down to 45 mins so we don’t actually pay £50. But that’s what he charges! He’s a primary teacher. Wanted someone consistent to see DS through year 6 and 7.

I’ve just been through the hell of super selective 11+ and it’s common.

The cheap and inexperienced tutors are very obviously so. I think they have a place for people who don’t have the money for an experience tutor.

we have paid anything between £40-90 per hour but have found the most useful format to be group monthly memberships- tutors who offer a full scheduled of classes and additional support like mindfulness sessions, monthly competitions and an online membership to things like atom. We have paid £300 a month for this.

I had a medical student tutor my dd for A-level biology and it worked well. She needed her confidence boosting to put her back back on track (online learning during the pandemic set her back)

She would go through topics that Dd needed help on as well as spend some sessions going through past papers that Dd had done between sessions. As she was in Sixth Form, dd set the agenda and I was fine with that. Her grades bounced back and she ended up getting a B grade which she was happy with.

If she needed more in depth help then she might have needed an experienced teacher but it worked well.

She also had group tuition with a head of department teacher in another subject. It cost the same per hour but she was more confident in this subject so it was just for 3 months.

It’s crowded so you have to differentiate yourself. What’s your niche?

• exam marking experience?
• 20+ years of teaching?
• experience with SEN learners?

One of my teaching colleagues charges the equivalent of £60/hr for tutoring in only three specific areas: IB MYP Personal Project report tutoring, IB DP IO prep, and IB DP extended essay tutoring. Very specific and expensive but she has a waiting list.

Don’t compare yourself to uni students or 16-year-olds, as your niche will be completely different.

I pay £50 p/hr for DS4 ( EHE) DS3 has the same tutor company but his is funded via EOTIS so the LA pays it. Their's is SEN-specific support. The company struggled to meet the drmand, even in the daytime slots, after school is booked solid.

That said, when DS2 was in 6th form, he used to help out at his school's after school maths club, and the pupils really took to him. He's autistic and a very quiet and gentle soul, with a lot of patience. He'd never have the confidence to offer paid uition, but I could see that some pupils may find engaging with a teacher difficult, particularly when they've had poor experiences in school.

I have a gap year son who is tutoring younger students.

I think the parents using him over a qualified teacher are mainly parents who struggle to sit and go through homework for whatever reason, personality clashes, time, not understanding the material. Lots of children just wont sit with mum.

They find an energetic man, closer in age to their child is able to motivate them. But they dont really need the expertise of an actual teacher. Noone with a severely behind gcse student is hiring him. He largely does homework and then builds on that with some stretch exercises.

I think he coaches more than teaches. He has level 3 coaching qualifications and uses that to coach outside his area.

I know that you are a teacher and there's value in that, but there's a lot of value in peer and alternative learning too

Hmmmm....it may work. And it may not. The things with qualified teachers who are still in school is that they are very clear on what is happening with exams, exam specs, the info that needs to go in an answer to get maximum marks etc etc. I tutored for years without school experience and I am far, far better at it with 15 years teaching and exam marking experience under my belt.

A spec change can result in some fairly major changes to what needs to be taught and how questions are asked/answered. You minimally need to be ensuring that any tutor you employ is working from the current spec and has access to multiple papers (these can be found free online, nothing clever about it).

It's like Marge Simpson said about offering piano lessons...'I only need to stay one lesson ahead of the kid..'

Also hmmm... If you are the only person teaching a class and know exactly where you're up to. My tutoring experience is all over the place - sometimes a student has had a lesson that day and wants to understand it better. You can't help with that if you haven't ever covered the material concerned.

Frankly, I think parents who pay out for tutoring but don't use teachers with experience are, usually, just throwing their money away.

I would absolutely expect to pay more for a good, qualified teacher who genuinely gets results. Not all tutors are equal. For academically selective families, that might mean a qualified teacher, an examiner, and a proven track record of getting children into grammar schools, top private schools or strong universities. For families whose children just aren’t thriving at school, the value can be different but just as important: taking a child from a predicted Grade 3 or 4 to a solid Grade 5 or 6+ massively increasing their options.

Of course, not every family can afford private tutoring, and that’s part of the wider inequality in the system. But in both cases, a really good online tutor can charge very high fees, avoid the politics and pressure of the classroom, and still earn extremely well. The reality is that even families who are prepared to pay may struggle to find someone with availability this year or even next. Good tutors have always been in short supply, and current pressures on the system have only made that worse.

We have used a mix of teachers and past students from my kids secondary school. I think there is a place for both.

This year, I am using a student who used to be at my son's school for extra help for his A level subject. Yes, he might not be as good as a qualified teacher but he is all I can afford right now and better than nothing. My son says he is really helpful and I'm hoping that it gives him confidence as the year progresses.

I think of it more like a helpful older brother than a teacher.

Thank you everyone, the posts have been really insightful and I completely understand why sometimes a parent may not need a qualified teacher.

a few updates for anyone interested
I started advertising my services as a tutor - when I first did it I never actually advertised but just got asked by friends of family if I was willing to - I have unfortunately noticed some strange ideas from parents.

1. I advertised my rate as 40 per hour and I'd offer a first session (trial) at £30. This was stated on the poster but two parents hearing the word trial assumed I was offering a completely free lesson. I only found out they were expecting a free lesson after we had discussed predicted grades, exam boards, which area their child would need most help on and the format on an exam prep like lesson.
2. Another parent has sent me numerous messages over the last few days and podcast length voice notes specifying exactly which papers and how I should go about the lesson including a v unrealistic expectation that I should be able to mark an entire language paper, feedback, teach her son how to mark his own paper and identify his own areas of weakness...all in one hour.

She also wanted pay only £30 instead of 40 because she says she wants to book multiple lessons and she's willing to do online which she believes should be cheaper...she doesn't actually have space in her home to do face to face due to having just moved but that's another story that she shared in detail via voice note..

Completely agree so I've clearly stated I have almost ten years experience teaching GCSE, will provide feedback on marked work and focus on helping students improve grades and have AQA exam marking experience. Didn't stop a parent asking if I have worked in an actual school and wanting to know which schools and then still wanting £10 knocked off the price.

Chancers everywhere. The great thing is that if the parent or child is difficult you can give notice or not take them on.

I’m so sorry if I sounded a snob there: if it makes you feel better, we aren’t rich at all: but I have given up smoking last year: the savinga from smoking have ended up being spent on the tuition

Ah yes, I hate the negotiating! Earlier in my career I would lower my prices or play the negotiation game. Now that I have young DC, and my time is precious, I can’t be assed with that anymore.

I said to a parent this year ‘that’s the price, take it or leave it’. They emailed back several times trying to negotiate, and I just stopped responding. They eventually came back a month later and accepted the price.

However, tutoring is extra cash for me as I teach full-time. If I was trying to do it as my only income, I would probably have to compromise more on the price, as I would need a larger number of students to tutor.

In our area there are lots of tutors - we have 11+ so that's an extra 'market'. But the best tutors don't advertise, they gain business through word of mouth based on reputation. The one my daughter is with now had a waiting list for 11+ tuition and had to take a test to even be accepted - they have a high pass rate to maintain I guess so only taking those who have a decent chance I think. We are paying per term but I think it works out about £40 per hour