Series of terrible tutors. Do I continue and try again?

[Helimummy1]

I used to work as a teacher many years ago and DD will be going through her 11+ next year. I have hired 3 tutors now in the space of about the last 2 months - 2 were from agencies and the other I found on gumtree. Upon asking some very basic questions e.g. what they have planned for the lesson / what they'd covered during the lesson / strengths and weaknesses, it quickly became clear none of the 3 had planned a lesson or cared in any way at all / had any real knowledge of the assessment / curriculum! 1 of the tutors was costing me £65 an hour! I've called up two more agencies this Easter break and they sound extremely busy and are basically admitting they probably won't have anyone decent at this 'busy time of year.' I know most of DD's friends at school have tutors but the mums don't seem too keen to share details. Any suggestions? Is it just me having bad experiences?

Where are you based? I'm a tutor based in Kent but am full except for holidays for this year's 11 plus. However, I know some other tutors who may have space (and who I know are good!) If you're in my area?

I would also say that a lot of decent tutors I know won't work through agencies that take a cut... they don't need to as they get enough work through word of mouth, so maybe ask on your local Facebook parents' page for actual customer referrals. Not to say all agency tutors are bad at all, as some people prefer to work this way.

We are not in the UK but one of my kids who is at uni has started tutoring senior high school students in the subjects that they specialise in at uni.

Here the subject curriculums are published on a website and most textbooks actually specify ‘aligned to curriculum’, you just need to make sure the text is aligned to the most current update to the curriculum. They actually do the same amount of pre-work each week as they do face to face work, getting each kid to send in copies of marked tests/work at school and work they set in the last session ahead of time so they know where they need to focus in the tutoring session. So while the fee may seem high they are doing 2hrs work total not just the 1hr face to face.