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Choosing a Tutor in Preparation for Exams

Exam time can be a stressful period for everyone involved. If your child needs extra help in a particular subject, of course, you may be thinking of hiring a tutor to get them through or improve their grades. This is a good idea but choosing the right person can also...

Top Tips on Helping Your Child With Their Homework

Once children start school, parents have to consider the prospect of homework. While this can be an exciting time as your child begins to learn new things, it can also be pretty challenging. Children can be enthusiastic or resistant to homework depending on their...

School Communication Barriers

As a company that helps schools communicate better in this brilliant technological age, working to bring down barriers is one thing that we’re particularly focused on at Parentapps. Most teachers and heads of school understand that good communication and involvement...

Parent’s Evening: Questions to Ask Teachers

One of the most important times that mums and dads get to meet teachers is during a parent’s evening. While these can be useful to understand how your child is doing in specific subjects and whether there are any problems, they can be quite hectic. Going in prepared...

Help with Pupil Premium

Since the launch of the Universal Infant Free School Meal Policy, schools have struggled to get parents to register for Pupil Premium because there is no longer the same incentive for parents to do so. Whilst the increase in children receiving school meals is fantastic…

How Surveys Can Help Improve Parental Engagement

The Surveys feature of Parentapps Connect, provides schools and nurseries with an easy way to find out what is and isn’t working when it comes to parental engagement. And, because you can choose whether to send them to the whole school, particular year groups, or…

How your school’s app can help with phonics

Now that Spring has begun, it will soon be time to start preparing your pupils for the Phonics Key Stage 1 Screening Check. Many children could benefit from having extra phonics help at home. And, many parents would be more than happy to work with their children in…

How an app can help improve safeguarding

Safeguarding is one of the biggest areas of concern for any nursery or school today. And, as parental engagement specialists, it is something that we take into great consideration when building our communication apps. A secure parental communication app can help put…

The Benefits of Having a Nursery App

If you want to build better engagement and keep your current parents up to date with the latest developments, you should consider a dedicated communication app for your nursery.
Increasingly, organisations are choosing to create their own apps to complement their…

Why Should Your School Have a Dedicated App?

Apps are everywhere. Collectively we download billions of them to our mobile phones and tablets each year. We do our weekly food shops, book flights and bank all from apps on our mobile devices.
But is a dedicated app suitable for your school? Can it deliver better…

Exam time can be a stressful period for everyone involved. If your child needs extra help in a particular subject, of course, you may be thinking of hiring a tutor to get them through or improve their grades. This is a good idea but choosing the right person can also be challenging.

Here’s our quick guide to help you make the best choice:

  1. Why Does Your Child Need a Tutor?

The first thing you really need to nail down is what your child requires and whether a tutor is likely to deliver. It’s important to discuss with their teacher where weaknesses are and how these might be overcome.

It could be that your child is simply not interested in the subject area and encouraging them more can help improve their performance. Make a list of the things you want the tutor to cover so that they understand where your child needs to improve.

  1. Finding a Tutor

The good news is that you can usually find plenty of tutors online. The bad news is figuring out how to pick the right one. The best way to start off is to ask around. Word of mouth is often the most reliable way to find someone good who you can trust to deliver the goods.

The trouble is, however, the best tutors are probably going to be pretty busy, especially at exam time. The key here is to start your search as early as possible rather than waiting until near the exam date. That not only gives you a chance to broaden the teaching experience for your child but to build a relationship with the tutor at the same time.

There are agencies that you can go to in order to find tutors in particular subjects and these have their advantages and disadvantages. First off, you are more likely to find a tutor who is available. One downside, however, is that you can’t always gauge the quality. The best agencies put a lot of effort into vetting and monitoring the people on their books so look at their reviews and credibility first.

You can also get online tuition nowadays which works pretty well for some subjects but not for others. It also gives you a wider scope because the tutor doesn’t have to be local to you. Some tutors also operate small groups rather than one-to-one teaching which may be more beneficial for your child.

  1. Discussing Your Childs Needs

It’s important that your tutor is reasonably well briefed when it comes to what your child needs extra help on, especially if time is an issue. This isn’t always an easy thing to do if you haven’t had input from your school. It’s important to have your child involved too and even part of the decision making process. The last thing you want is a tutor your child doesn’t like or can’t connect with.

You’ll also want to know how the private tutor gauges progress and whether they assess your child. If they are simply preparing your child for an exam and tightening up their knowledge, this might have limited value but for more long term teaching and learning it’s important.

Finally, it’s also important as a parent to build a relationship with the tutor so that they can keep you informed of how your child is progressing. Keeping the conversation going with your child is always going to help.