Win a free online tutoring session for your child

[HannahGMumsnet]

Finding a tutor who’s a great fit for your child can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Except this needle lives an hour round-trip away and is booked up until autumn 2025.

Online one-to-one tuition is a way to beat the competition and connect with a brilliant tutor - no matter where they live.

MyTutor are offering 20 Mumsnetters a free online tutoring session - and to be in with a chance of winning one, all you have to do is fill out this form.

We're also really keen to hear the extreme lengths you’ve seen parents go to or indeed gone to yourself in order to find, or keep hold of, the perfect tutor - so do share your stories on the thread if you want!

Update: We have extended this competition, and will now be selecting the winners on Friday 22 March - good luck!

Hi, I'm looking for a tutor in Maths and science. My son is taking his GCSEs soon and needs a little help. Any one can recommend someone? We live in SK10 Macclesfield.
Thanks, L

Hi there @lindamari5,

It looks like you might have posted in the wrong place, did you mean to start a new thread? If you need some help with how to do this, drop us a line at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help!

we home educate...so there is much talk of tutors to cover specific areas of various GCSE topics. I am always curious to what extent tutors teach to the test, and to what extent they try and actually explain material. I'd be interested in tutoring myself but I worry I can bring myself to get into 'repeat after me' mode on the specific answers required to specific questions in the UK system...

I guess the answer is to tutor maths where there isn't the same separation of 'correct' from 'the required answer'..

I’m a tutor. A very popular one with a long waiting list. I teach very much to the test as people basically pay me to boost their kids’ results. I home educate my own kids and don’t approve of people wanting tuition for very young kids ( unless they have extra needs or need one to one support). Some of my rich clients give me very nice gifts to retain me but it is a nicer job in general than the secondary school teaching I used to do for a living.

DD has a maths tutor. We started because her class always seemed to get student teachers and her class was often behind other classes.

DS had a fantastic maths teacher who fortunately does tutoring too after school. Has made a great difference.

mistle thats interesting! So you end up teaching your own kids very differently from the kids you tutor presumably?

I suppose I do the same - I actually spoon feed my undergraduates more than I would my 7 yo DD....because she isn't going to be filling in the NSS.

Yes, I feel like my own kids do deep learning whilst my posh tutoring kids don’t necessarily come from families who value that approach to education. They tend to only focus on exam results.

I am a tutor who goes to my pupils' homes. Here are a few observations to tickle MN crowd:

I do mostly teach to the test because that's what people want and expect, but I throw in things which I think might be useful or interesting (maths and science), and explain things in a way they might not be taught at school. I carry a few props to demonstrate principles in physics. Musical instruments can be good for this, if the pupil has one. I often tell pupils of funny things my school teachers did and said. Did a maths teacher use his tie as a compass once upon a time?

I know which things pupils are often caught out by in maths and science, so I'm always certain to address those. Nine times out of ten, I'm right. I often say "with this question, there's a trap waiting to bite you: read it carefully". And then, when they've fallen headlong into the trap, I say "read the question again, especially the very first sentence".

It's a perk of the job, meeting my pupils' cats and dogs, and seeing inside their houses. Sometimes I am asked to remove my shoes, but nobody has ever denied me access to their bathroom. I am regularly offered tea and coffee, and in December, more bottles of wine than I can drink. Some pupils (or their parents) find it unsettling being on first-name terms with me, but it's how I usually introduce myself.

It's rare that pupils in year 11 or below manage their own appointments with me: they often go in the parents' diary, or perhaps on a communal wall planner. Occasionally (especially on Saturday mornings or in school holidays) I have arrived and the pupil is clearly one minute out of bed - such lessons rarely go well. I try to pre-empt this when booking a morning lesson, by reminding them to have breakfast before I arrive! I don't mind pupils in PJs (some tutors take a dim view of this), but I have sent one or two teenage boys upstairs to put something on their top half.

Hi everyone - MyTutor are extending this competition for another week, so we will now be choosing and announcing a winner on Tuesday 12 March.

Remember to keep sharing your tutoring tales to be in with a chance of winning!

Hello again - another quick note to say we have now stripped back the form a little bit so it's even easier to enter

Remember, to be in with a chance of winning, just click on the link at the top of the thread (or here if you prefer) and fill in the form, then head back here and share your best stories about what it takes to find the perfect tutor.

Good luck!

My son is ASD and has a maths tutor, he is really patient and encourages, never criticises
He is really high functioning and is very capable of doing well but find it hard to concentrate in class. This hour really brings him on. He scored 89 % in a recent test

Hi everyone - me again.

We've had a chat with MyTutor, and it seems the entry mechanism we originally suggested on this one was just a little too time-consuming.

So now, all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning one of 20 free online tutoring sessions is fill in this form. We have updated the OP to reflect this.

Then, if you fancy, head back here and let us know your tutoring experiences.

Good luck!

I have searched for a tutor to help my Ds who has Dysgraphia but no one seems to have any experience.

I have paid for tutoring as my Ds was feeling left behind .

Not my experience, but a friends, they spent a fortune on tutors as their son wanted access to the local private school, after giving up every weekend to support this, the son decided after 6 months that he hated the school and they moved him to the local secondary school.

About to enter the tutoring world myself for our daughter, just hope she enjoys it.

My daughter isn't in school as she's got sensory processing disorder and can't bear clothes on her skin. We are working hard to help her through this stage(she's 11) and I am setting her work, but we are still waiting for school to give her some work until this crisis is over. Its made me consider a tutor for her but this is all new to me and I don't know where to start

I've just signed my son up for this online after school tutoring class for maths which begins in September.
Air maths tuition
I was recommended the tutor by a friend in Barnes who said he was very good. We're going to try it out as its free of a few days at the start of term and see how it goes.