26th July 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
There are lots of tutors looking for work right now, especially new graduates looking for work over the summer. Some tutors have a broad range of qualifications and are willing to teach several subjects, and request to teach subjects across the board from English and History to Maths and Science. However, many tuition agencies will only allow tutors to teach subjects in which they have a degree. Agencies do this in order to ensure that tutors are experts in the subjects they teach, but this means that they are often unable to meet the individual demands of parents. Some parts are looking for tuition for their children in one subject, and insist that their tutor is qualified to degree level. Others prefer to have one tutor teaching a number of subjects. So how should the tuition industry respond to this?
One thing we need to do is look at the individual requirements from parents and ensure that we can provide the best tutor for them. Often, this does mean finding a tutor with a degree in the subject they are teaching. Some students are looking for help with their degrees themselves, and for those students we ideally would like to find a tutor who has a masters or PhD in the subject to ensure that they can supervise them with confidence. A’ level students who are struggling with a particular subject, perhaps a problem with Maths or History, would also benefit from a tutor who has a degree in the subject. However, in other cases, the best thing we can do is find a tutor who is an all-rounder, or has more experience teaching a particular qualification.
Some parents feel that, if their children need help in several subjects, it would be best not to confuse them by having several different tutors coming to the house each week. At Key stage 3 or GCSE, parents often request that one tutor cover several subjects in order to give their child an opportunity to forge a good working relationship and build confidence with more general skills. In these cases, agencies should be able to take the decision that a tutor who doesn’t have degrees in all the subjects they are taking might be best for the student. A tutor with a science degree and A Levels in Maths and Physics could be a perfect tutor to teach a student struggling with Maths and Physics GCSE. In other cases, such as languages, it also may not be the best choice to assign a tutor with a degree in the subjects. Sometimes a tutor with a degree in French would be perfect for a GCSE French student, but other times a native French speaker without the degree would be preferable for students who want to focus on accent and culture. In order to provide the best tuition we need to evaluate a student’s individual requirements and assign tutors accordingly.