*This is a collaborative guest post
We all want the best for our children, and sometimes when they are preparing for their exams and studying hard, we need to give them a little extra help to get them to where they need to be. When your child is taking an important exam like the 11+ and you are thinking about how competitive those independent or grammar schools are going to be, hiring a personal tutor or enrolling your child in an online tutorial class makes so much sense. However, it can be difficult to know where to start. You are going to have a lot of questions and you want to avoid taking as few chances with this course or educator as you can.
So, what are the things that you should be looking for in an online tutor? How can you make sure that they are going to engage your child in creative learning and give them the boost that they need to prepare for their exams? Here are a few tips to help you make the right choice and set your child on the path towards acing those exams.
Look For Good Word Of Mouth
Over the course of the pandemic, it feels like we’ve lost a little of the parent community that we would usually have. It’s been harder to keep in touch with our fellow mums and dads about recommendations, things to avoid, and generally commiserating over missed sleep and stress. But now that we can start seeing people again, it’s time to activate that network. Of course, a recommendation is not the be all and end all, but it will definitely help to narrow your search.
Look For Flexibility
We all know how hard it has been to make a plan and stick to it over the last year or so. Even as things seem to be looking up out there, the new variants have a lot of us wondering if we aren’t going to end up spending even more time indoors in the near future. With that in mind, you need to make sure that the personal tutor you hire offers flexible teaching hours and the ability to tutor virtually.
Be Clear On What Your Goal Is And Make Sure The Tutor Can Help
This might sound like something of an obvious point, but it is really important that you have a very clear idea of what you want from a tutor before you hire them. If you want some ongoing help for your child outside of class, then that may require a different approach to a tutor who can assist in preparing for a specific exam. If your child needs some extra help preparing for the 11+ for example, then it makes sense to talk to tutors who specialise in that exam. Explore 11 plus online learning with the staff at Test Teach, who are available for online and in-person tutorials and have been carefully selected for their energy and experience.
Look For A Good Track Record
When you search online for a tutor, you are going to be absolutely flooded with choices. Some of these tutors will be fantastic, others will be people who need a bit of extra cash and see talking a child through a series of tests as being an easy way to boost their income. One of the easiest ways to sort the good from the bad is asking to see past results. Have they been able to get children the exam results to secure them places at the kind of schools that you want? Are they up to date with the latest changes to the curriculum? What can they offer you in the way of past papers and mock exams? A good tutor or online school will be able to show you exactly how effective their methods have been in the past.
Ask About Their Lesson Plans
Experience and credentials are obviously very important when it comes to choosing a tutor, but it is very important that you ask about their lesson plans and the kind of structure and support they provide. A rigorously templated plan might hit all of the most important subjects, but you are going to want to know that they will be checking that your child is keeping up. Flexibility is crucial here too. Be sure that they will be able to identify areas where your child is struggling and adapt their plan accordingly.
Make Sure That They Are A Good Fit
Finally, one of the most important steps in finding a good tutor for your child is making sure that they can connect. The relationship between an online tutor and a student is very different to what you’d need in the classroom, so it might make sense to have a chat with the candidate and your child to make sure the dynamic works.