Advice on choosing a tutor please and cost?

[Bambambini]

Looking for a math tutor for my 12 yr old (yr 8). Looking at a tutor site and have a few to choose from. Would you be looking for someone with a teaching background who had a knowledge of the curriculum or would you be happy with some one with good math degree qualifications but not necessarily teacher trained. Also how much do you pay. The prices are varying between 12 to 30+ quid per hour.

Given the choice you describe, I would personally go for the person with the teaching background. That said, I have hired two tutors via websites like this who were not schoolteachers, and both were excellent. Both had a very strong background in their subject, but also seemed to show a genuine enthusiasm for teaching in their personal statements, and described their teaching approach. I'm in London and paid £25/hr for GCSE teaching and £30/hr for A Level.

Well, I did lots of tutoring with good qualifications, no teaching background, but excellent curriculum knowledge (it's all publicly available after all!) and hopefully an enthusiastic and knowledgeable-sounding blurb So it would depend for me on other things, not just teaching qualification or not.

Find out what exam board your school will be entering him on and find a tutor that has experience of teaching that course.

Defo get a teacher.