Online tutoring vs face-to-face

[LibbyKate]

My son (Y9) has recently started 1-1 online sessions with a tutor to help him with English. Tutor is great but doesn’t live in the area (found through a friend of a friend) so no possibility of ever doing ‘real life’ lessons. The lessons seem to be going well and my son isn’t as against them as I’d thought he be. However, I’m not sure if face-to-face tutoring (post lockdown) would be more beneficial. Do those who know more than me have a view on this? I don’t want to swap him to someone who he may not get on as well with! Thank you!

Face to face is definitely more effective. My daughter had Maths tuition and it was by a long way better in person.

I would keep things as they are for now and review for September. A lot of good tutors will be booked up for the academic year. At this time of year, it would be quite hard to switch back to face-to-face from on-line because many tutors may have a mix of local and further away students.

I've offered both online and face to face tuition for about 2 years now.

My daughter is year 10 and has also done a mix of online and face to face tuition.

If the teacher is technologically capable and a good teacher then there is absolutely no difference in the quality of teaching between the two in my opinion. In many ways I would say online is far superior and I would choose it over face to face for my daughter now. Her maths tutor lives 1.5 miles away but I've already told him we will stick with online because it's effective and so much more convenient.

There is some fantastic software out there and if the tutor has invested and prepared properly and is a talented teacher then the lessons will be effective.

I teach younger children and there are a small % who I believe will benefit from coming back to me in person. They are all making progress and enjoy the lessons, but they have issues concentrating, mainly because of other things happening at home during their lesson or dodgy internet/lack of decent equipment for the lesson.

There will always be people who prefer one or the other, it's such a personal choice. If your child likes the lessons and is making progress then why would you change things? Do you feel you aren't getting value for money or something?

I agree with @rosesinmygarden as a tutor myself preparation is key, that being said when teaching younger ones sometimes the parents need to be present should the child become distracted however if your teaching children with needs the children respond to face to face interaction. @LibbyKate your seeing results and your son likes the tutor, my opinion no need to change when its working. #tutoring#learningisfun

Yes my daughter was initially reluctant to have math and chemistry tutoring online, but her tutor got some equipment so he writes on it and it appears on her screen (or something like that) so it works well. Maybe not as well as face to face, but don't discount the relationship your child and tutor will have built up - that is very important too.

Thank you all so much, especially @rosesinmygarden. I feel much more comfortable now in sticking to the online sessions. It wasn’t about the money..more that I was interested to hear different opinions. It seems to be working well, so I’m going to stick with it.

I think it just depends. I know many parents who have outright refused to even entertain the idea of enrolling their child with online tutoring. But then were forced to do so during the pandemic and have not looked back since. My child has been using Tutor Bank for 4 years now and initially it could take getting used to but its been such a blessing. So for me, online tutoring (with a good reputable agency or individual) is definitely working.