Philosophy tutor introduction fee?

[Snog]

I could do with some advice!
I'm trying to find a tutor for Philosophy AS level for my dd who is finding it hard.
They seem to be thin on the ground and the only one I found so far is with an agency that want £25 as a one off "introduction" fee.
This doesn't work well for me as if I find out on day 1 that she isn't a good match for my dd I will have paid £50 for nothing and will have a further £25 introduction fee for the next tutor.
Can anyone advise me?
I live in central Cambridge.

I looked up all the local schools, found the ones doing the same exam board and asked their Head of Dept for recommendations.

Thank you that sounds like a great approach

What about online tuition:

spires.co/#wacomBackground

Hmmm I considered online tuition but thought in person might suit my child better. Have you tried online tuition? Is it a Skype/FaceTime session usually?

You live in Cambridge - can you get a student?

Most undergraduate students are not very good tutors for AS/A2 unless they themselves did the same papers. (And even then it depends on how good they are at teaching.) It's not enough to know the subject - you need to know how to optimise your performance in exams, how the exams will be marked and so on. I'm an academic but I wouldn't necessarily feel confident in tutoring AS/A2 for my subject without studying in detail the syllabus of the exam board, past papers, commentary on marking of past papers etc etc.

BTW I wouldn't think that many Cambridge students would have done philosophy at AS - it's not a facilitating subject and isn't taken by that many people.

I have used online tuition for my 9 year old son and it has been very successful. I have never used Spires, however, as my son is not doing any of the qualifications they offer tutoring for.

Just passed them on to you as I thought they sounded like a possible match for you.

£25 doesn't sound like much so I'd have a go if I was happy with he tutor's CV and references.

You may have to manage your expectations regarding how well your DD gets on with the tutor. There aren't that many that she can afford to be too fussy.
RE is compulsory at school. Everyone does it, but maybe not that much, just the one hour a week. This means that RE teachers have an unusually high ratio of admin work. English teachers may see the same pupil every day so they have one lot of admin (marking, assessing, reporting) for 5 hours of teaching time. In the same span of lesson-time the RE teacher might see five different pupils so they will have five times the amount of admin.
RE teachers are busy and may not have the spare time for tutoring. The tutor we found was HoD, who has a lesser teaching load and was probably trying to keep her hand in.