Primary school tutoring

[fiatpower]

My wife is a primary school teacher and has taught years 4, 5 and 6 for almost 10 years. She's going on maternity leave next year and we think that money may be tight so i've floated the idea that perhaps she looks at doing some tutoring couple times a week once she feels comfortable and could perhaps do it going forward. She's actually really keen on the idea so is doing some research too.

Has anyone become a tutor (primary school in particular)? There seem to be a fair few tutoring companies out there, any recommendations of good ones to apply to?

[BoRED S2upid]

Just do it privately. Put the word out and she will be inundated. If she only needs a few kids it’s not going to be hard why let a tutoring company take a cut?

[deckster]

BoRED S2upid said:

Just do it privately. Put the word out and she will be inundated. If she only needs a few kids it’s not going to be hard why let a tutoring company take a cut?

Because they'll do the hard work of finding clients, because she will be paid by the agency and not have to worry about chasing parents, because they will deal with the regular litany of "little Johnny's football is overrunning so we won't be here tonight, we don't have to pay do we".

Of course there are benefits of doing it all informally and/or privately. But there are definitely good reasons for using an agency as well.

[Truckosaurus]

BoRED S2upid said:

Just do it privately. Put the word out and she will be inundated. If she only needs a few kids it’s not going to be hard why let a tutoring company take a cut?

My sister's friend is a maths teacher at a secondary school and does tutoring on the side - never short of work and there always seem to be people asking for recommendations on Facebook so you should be able to drum up plenty of punters just via friends-of-friends.

If anyone messes about with paying or cancelling or not behaving, then bin them off - if you work with an agency they will want to to keep working with the pain in the arse kids as they want all the customers they can get - and I'm sure every teacher has enough hassle with that in their day jobs.

[ClaphamGT3]

Don't know where you are based but, round our way, it's a providers market for tutoring with the onus for flexing arrangements with the parents and payment expected up-front of on the day. Things to bear in mind;

• Make sure that your wife has an enhanced DBS and references
• Decide what she wants to focus on in terms of subjects, age of pupils and prep (is she working to build up SATS performance, prepping for 7+/11+/*13+/CE exams etc) and become 'famous' for that.
• Set clear expectations on what you can and can't achieve - you can't get little Johnnie through his Harrow pre-test if little Johnnie has an IQ of 3
• Focus on building up a client list through referrals and word of mouth but, to get started, maybe use local facebook Mum's groups

[ArmaghMan]

My daughter and son in law are both primary teachers.
They could tutor 7 days a week if they wanted.
She will be inundated once word gets out.

[SIMON67]

I worked as a teaching assistant and tutored privately at the same time. 75% of my students were from the school I worked in. Luckily the head didn't have a problem with this, indeed she paid me to do some tuition before school started

My main revenue was for 11+ tuition but that obviously depends on your area. I was good at it so had a waiting list. Time is the main constraint as obviously kids are in school during the day. I did 3 one hour sessions weekday afternoons and mock exams at weekends from October to September.

Money was good compared to working as a teaching assistant (I was charging £35 per hour 6 years ago).

It can be very rewarding if you enjoy teaching and seeing progress quite quickly

[vaud]

Do it... we pay £30/hr for remote tutoring (since the pandemic) and my daughter loves it, the customised tutoring really works well and she has made great progress.

e.g. she struggled with maths and the tutor tuned it to Pokemon maths...

[fiatpower]

Interesting feedback, certainly seems like there's a market there. She's going to put some feelers out around her school now and also look into the agency route and then we can decide based on what feedback she gets. She would be looking at tutoring year 5 and 6 in maths and science as those are her specialist subjects in her school so makes sense to base off that.

[vaud]

fiatpower said:

Interesting feedback, certainly seems like there's a market there. She's going to put some feelers out around her school now and also look into the agency route and then we can decide based on what feedback she gets. She would be looking at tutoring year 5 and 6 in maths and science as those are her specialist subjects in her school so makes sense to base off that.

Advice from my daughters tutor was:

• Talk with teacher on weaker areas for development
• Send the school homework to the tutor each week so they can see the focus areas
• SATS prep and practice
• Ensure the parent shares any development concerns (we had undiagnosed dyslexia which held my daughter back on some topics)

Also she may need to check her contract? If she is on maternity is she allowed to do a separate gig? I don't know teaching contracts.

[Bullett]

We paid for a tutor for my daughter, various subjects were covered (she's mildly Dyslexic and lacks confidence) that was face to face based on recommendations.

Her son is now tutoring my son y7/8/9 maths.

Remote is way easier, don't need to take them anywhere and hang around for an hour and no-one is in your house. We pay upfront and in advance, this is the standard method.

She will be inundated once her name gets out and if she's any good (the kids like her).

[vaud]

Bullett said:

We paid for a tutor for my daughter, various subjects were covered (she's mildly Dyslexic and lacks confidence)

Ours really, really helped with both the identification of dyslexia and then with adjusted techniques. My daughter adores her... how many 10 year olds come home from school on a Thursday and say "Is it Thursday? I can't wait to see (tutor name)"

Enthusiasm for learning is 50% of the challenge in my view, not that my daughter dislikes school, the personal learning is very good for her.

We decided that rather than private school (which we could just about have afforded) we would instead focus on supplementary 1:1 tutoring throughout secondary on the key topics.

[Bullett]

Mine wasn't keen but it helped her, she was at private at the time but now in the state sector.
She has just asked for tutor again though, we found another phd student who tutors (on recommendations) and she starts again Wed night, remote this time.