Do you employ private tutors?

[negrilbaby]

Just wondering if many HE use private tutors for GCSE (maths especially)
I am looking into tutoring as a step away from formal teaching and am trying to gauge the possible market.
If you do - can you let me know how many hours a week you use and whether or not you pay travel expenses for the tutor?
I live in a fairly rural community so the travel would be quite extensive.
many thanks in advance.

Not many HE'ers use tutors continuously. We share knowledge and teaching within our communities and we use online + workbooks. The languages and music subjects are more likely to be in demand. But some families may use tutors just to top up Maths before exams. You should know that a lot of HE families have to operate on a single income and therefore set up cooperatives to access resources for just a few pounds. By the way you are not the first person to ask this question on this chat page - it is fairly common.

I know a guy who ran a very successful tutoring business (I mean, he was the tutor, not that he had an army of tutors working for him). In five years or so in an area where there are many home edders, he had just one home ed family on his books.

I think this is partly because lots of those schooly crunch points are totally irrelevant to home edders (SATs. Pffft. 11+ phooey. Falling behind the standard levels for their age - well, we'll just go on interacting with them at their current level then) and by the time prep for formal exams come along, a lot of home ed teens are confident independent learners used to pinpointing what they don't know or understand, and with strategies for finding out what they want and need to know.

I don't (I've been HEing for 10+ years) & apart from music lessons & language conversation groups I don't know any HEors who have used tutors regularly. Having maths tuition in the run up to GCSE/iGCSE is reasonably common though. Those that have used maths tutors have ime used fellow HEors who also happen to be maths teachers (there are a few around!) and it isn't usually a long term thing.

(I've done some science tutoring of HE'd children - organised by the LA for traveller children - not a reliable source of income ime! I have a couple of friends who HE & do maths tuition - the majority of their clients are schooled children though)

We haven't used maths tutors either - the local sixth form offers GCSE evening classes for English, maths for £40 each (and you get half back if you get a C or above), which is much easier than sorting a tutor.

And as PP have said, we do skills swaps with other HE parents to access subjects I'm not so good at.

I've used a lot of tutors but not qualified teachers. Those I have interviewed to work with ds were a bit too box-ticky and NC for what we needed (ds has SNs) and they didn't 'get' that he needed a certain approach. It would have been just the same as school, really.

Instead I use university students who are far cheaper and more willing to think outside the box and work the way I need them to. We've had some very good success with the tutors I've used.

That might be something you want to consider. Most home educators want a different approach to the 'schooly' way of doing things, so any tutor I'd employ would have to respect that, and take guidance from the parent about their child's quirks. Not in every case, but mostly, I would think.

Many thanks for your responses - they all make a lot of sense.

Back to the drawing board then ......

I don't think you should forget the idea entirely OP just not perhaps use it as a market on its own.
I would advertise your business to all people from all walks of life.
It is something we would have considered as dd struggles with Maths, but unfortunately it comes at the bottom of her list and we already pay for music tuition her no 1 subject.
There are lots of people who would take up the offer and if you are looking to fill daytime slots maybe look at offering it to post 16 students and adults who may need to brush up.
With cuts to college budgets the previously free courses for English and Maths are not as widespread as they previously were.
Then you may get a couple from H.ed community too.
Not sure if that makes sense but the main point was not to put all eggs into one basket and you may have a viable business.

We use tutors for languages, and music.

We teach maths ourselves, as up to A-Level, it's easy enough. We would though, employ a tutor if they offered preferential rates during 'school hours'.

Our language and music tutors do this, and it means we can concentrate on our younger children during those hours.

We couldn't afford a maths tutor at the standard £25 per hour, but we recognise the benefits of an outside influence at £10 an hour (and we're willing to travel to them!).

I am using a maths teacher, just to help build my daughters confidence and to cover the GCSE curriculum before she goes into college to do it. Maths frightened her, so he is going at her pace and taking it steady.