30th March 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A really common question from new tutors is whether every student we have has basically been forced into private tuition by pushy parents. Tutors are understandably worried that they’ll have to put so much effort into motivating students before even beginning to actually teach. Obviously we have come across parents like this, but the reality is very different from tutors’ assumptions; most parents listen to their children and don’t force them into anything.
Private tuition has become so commonplace that even young students are aware that it’s an option available to them. Parents often tell our tutors that their son or daughter actually asked for a tutor after a disappointing exam result, or even just when they realised they were struggling with a subject. Of course, parents are more likely to be the ones to introduce the idea of a tutor, but even then, they tend to ask the student if it’s something which could help, and we’ve known parents to cancel lessons after a few weeks because they say their son/daughter didn’t think it was helping, which shows that it is a collaborative decision.
Whoever decides to begin lessons, what is true is that the parents are paying the tuition fees, and understandably want value for money. At the first lesson the opening discussion is usually setting expectations about what’s expected of the tutor, and what the tutor expects. This can feel a little overwhelming because parents obviously want the best possible outcome and sometimes don’t realise that demanding that the tutor be amazing and that the student is dedicated and hardworking, puts some pressure on both tutor and student right from the outset. However, our tutors are mature and balanced enough to understand this dynamic, and actually a tutor can act as a great buffer between parent and student by assuring the parent that everything’s going well, while also keeping that pressure away from the student and creating a good learning environment.
There have been occasions where a tutor has told us that a parent is a negative influence; watching the lesson and being critical, or simply demanding too much from everyone involved, but this is so incredibly rare, and we’re happy to say that, on the whole, students want a tutor, want to understand their subject, and want to do well for themselves.