Private tutor always on phone during lesson

[Emilia321]

Hi Guys
I was hoping for some advice. My 8 year old daughter has been having private 121 lessons in a core subject and the tutor comes to our house twice a week. I usually leave them to their lesson in the dining room and get on with other jobs around the house and looking after my second child. My daughter tells me that the tutor is always checking their phone and staying on it for a few minutes each time. The lessons are only 1 hour long and I am not sure how much of this is actually being spent on her phone. She has been tutoring her for nearly 1 year and I don’t know how to sort this situation. If I bring it up it may make things awkward and she will know my daughter has told me about this. What would be the best way to handle this situation?

Many thanks in advance

You do need to challenge the tutor on this. Either in writing or in person. You are paying them to do a job, not playing in their phone. It's also offensive to your DD. Possibly ask the tutor to leave their phone in their car/coat pocket and not have it in the lesson.
Teacher's don't either!!

I would say “no phones in use during lesson time please”
Which could be expanded to “when dd is old enough to have a phone she won’t be allowed to have it at certain times -homework being one of those times. I need you to do the same please”

This is not acceptable as the tutor's attention should be on your daughter during the sessions. Whilst it is OK to use a device i sessions - I quite often use my ipad for games or video clips - going on your phone for personal reasons should not be happening. I would ask your daughter to make a note of every time she checks her phone next time and to say if it was quickly or for a little while. It could be that this was a one off and the tutor was having to check messages for a specific reason so I would monitor it first.

If it happens again, you just have to mention it. You are not getting effective tutoring if you have a disinterested tutor, who spends the session on their phone.

Send them a text whilst they’re tutoring
“its not appropriate to be answering your phone whilst I’m paying you to tutor my child” and watch them squirm.

I’d just say to the tutor, please turn phone off during the lesson.

I think if someone said to me (not that I do this when I tutor but if I did) something like "DD has mentioned that you are on your phone during the lesson – are you using it to check something, because if not, I’d prefer it if you focused on DD and her work” I think I couldn't really have an issue with that.

It would give me a get-out to say gosh yes occasionally I do need to look something up (I had to check an item of vocab in a lesson last week actually – but I did say so to the student, and also I use my phone to play listening tasks, like a PP with video clips). That would avoid embarrassment, if that is your concern.

Tho tbh you are paying the tutor so they should be giving your child their full attention. Is it when your DD is doing some task on her own or something? I am finding it hard to imagine how the tutor is doing this and thinking it is OK.

I agree with this approach. It could also be deemed a safeguarding risk as you don’t know what they’re doing on their phone. Not acceptable.

Thanks guys, that was really helpful. Its been going on for a while, my daughter mentioned it to me after a few lessons as I asked her to try and keep an eye on it. I didn’t really want to sit in on lessons as I know that might be counterproductive and I’ve been putting off saying anything but what you all have said makes sense. It’s only an hour lesson and so time is being wasted.

thanks again :))