Question to anyone who does tutoring

[Reastie]

I'm just about to start tutoring a student for a level. I've taught alevel before including one on one teaching to a student but never tutored out of school. I've never taught this student before.

Just to check etiquette/expectations of a good tutoring session, how much of the time is spent me teaching the student and how much is spent the student doing practice exam questions/induvidual tasks I've set on their own ? I feel like I should be working for my money and doing stuff throughout the session but equally the student working through tasks as part of the session surely is needed to help their learning and improve exam technique.

Any advice would be appreciated

It depends on the student and what they would like you to do to be honest. Some students prefer to revise in their own time and then spend the lesson going through relevant exam questions. Some like a bit of time reviewing and revising facts with you before doing relevant questions in the lessons and there are others than will do a complete past paper in their own time and then you spend the lesson going over it with them.
At A level there are some students who are very focussed and able to tell you very specifically what they need help with. Some of these students may even have some of their own questions that they would like answered. Other students will still expect you to plan lessons and organise the lesson material etc.
I usually try to contact the student a few days beforehand to try to work out their preferred ways of working. Hope that helps

I always meet up with them before starting to find out what they want and how I can best be helpful, plus make sure they've got realistic expectations and know they'll still have to work bloody hard!

I normally just check they've understood what's been taught in school, that the school has covered the syllabus and go through anything that's unclear. Then we move straight on practice questions. The split depends on how well they've understood the material. I make it clear there's no point me testing them in straight recall stuff because that's a waste of their time. I'm sure you'll be fine.

Thank you. I've asked various questions in the email but not hard back but have a trial so will see how it goes. I have questions to ask and will see what said student is looking for. It's difficult to plan the first session so I've prepared some bits to see what their current knowledge is and then some questions/parts of the syllabus to work through looking not just at the info covered but also how to answer the question and different learning techniques and hoping that will be sufficient for th first session and by the end of that I'll have more of an idea what they are looking for in the future if they choose to go ahead.