Having worked as a private tutor for 14 years, a question I’m often asked by potential clients is “When is the best time to start private tutoring for my child?”. This is an interesting question, and can depend on a range of factors such as proximity to exams, social/academic schedule, the student’s desire to perform, etc. In this blog post I’d like to expand on my thoughts for making private tuition as productive, efficient, and cost-effective as possible.
Firstly, let me elaborate on what I mean when I say “productive”. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the sole measure of private tuition’s effectiveness is improvement in test/exam scores, but that’s not how I work. Inspired by the book “The Score Takes Care of Itself” by Bill Walsh, I pay particular attention to helping students develop processes which maximise the efficiency of their own learning. My doctoral work focused on mathematically modelling how best to do this, how best to find the catalyst that alters the trajectory of someone’s educational development, to ‘change their eigenstate’ as the mathematical terminology would say. Of course, I won’t distil an 80,000 word thesis into one blog post, but an important observation throughout it was that students' attitudes towards education and educational development becomes less malleable with age.
So, with that in mind, let’s talk about when to start considering private tuition.
In this job, most potential clients make contact either in August/September (as the academic year is starting), or in January/February (shortly after mock exams). I often see these as ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ requests, respectfully.
Let’s consider a ‘reactive’ request, someone who has recognised they have fallen behind where they want/need to be and is looking to get back on track. As exams start to loom, the pressure student’s feel starts to mount. When student’s fall behind their class, their attitude to learning and approach to studying often changes. Under such circumstances, students often resort more to rote memorisation in an attempt to catch up to their peers.
I want to be clear about this, rote memorisation is a time efficient way to improve academic grades. The problem with it is that it is not sustainable in the long run. A mathematics student may be able to memorise and apply a set of formulas at GCSE level, but when these formulas become prerequisite knowledge for more advanced A-Level content the lack of thorough understanding starts to cause problems.
This is one of the benefits of working with a private tutor, how their expertise can help you make the right decisions to achieve the goals you have. Being completely honest, if a GCSE student working at a Grade 5 wanted to achieve a Grade 7 in an exam 2 months away, and they had no intention of continuing maths, I would recommend a short-term rote memorisation approach. Not only can an experienced private tutor help you determine the best strategy to achieve your goals, they can also help you identify and address gaps in prerequisite knowledge which may be holding you back from engaging with classroom content.
In the case of reactive requests, my top priority is to help put students back into a position whereby they can engage properly with classroom content and not resort to the unsustainable strategy of rote memorisation. Suppose a student has 4 hours of maths in college a week, and 2 hours of private tuition. By helping them feel more in pace with their classroom environment, they are now getting 6 hours a week of effective learning, rather than the 2 hours a week from private tuition otherwise. This can be done in many ways, such as:
Obtaining content schedules from school/college
Assisting with the identification of prerequisite knowledge
Helping students forward plan study to maximise effective classroom time
Working with teachers to best understand a student’s knowledge gaps
Teaching students how to organise their notes
Teaching students how to use online resources during self study
In the case of reactive students, getting them back on pace with their class as quickly as possible is an effective strategy. Though regular weekly tuition can work, a more-intense burst of lessons (such as during a half term break) may be more beneficial.
In contrast, consider the case of a “proactive” request. These are students who aren’t feeling as though they’re struggling in class, certainly aren’t performing below their academic objectives. Rather they are in a comfortable position and looking to consolidate this, avoiding the pitfalls of feeling as though they have fallen behind in class.
Growth mindset is a commonly used term in educational development, it describes a students’ belief in their own ability to advance and develop academically. In contrast, students with a fixed mindset often believe intelligence to be an innate trait, that whether or not they apply themselves their academic ability will remain static.
When students feel ahead of their peers, their sense of growth mindset develops. This has numerous knock on effects, such as a greater enjoyment of their subject and perseverance in the face of problematic topics.
If a student comes to me in such a position, my focus will be on keeping them firmly ahead of their classroom content. I want them going into every lesson confident in the topic already, so that classroom time can be used to demonstrate and apply the knowledge they already have, and ultimately let a student's growth mindset flourish.
So, in answer to my initial question, when is the best time to start private tuition? The answer, sooner rather than later. Though the reasons for it may vary from case to case, the benefits have more time to compound the earlier the tuition process begins. If a student feels like they’re struggling, getting them caught up reduces the risk of the unsustainable rote memorisation trap. If a student feels ahead, reinforce a deeper sense of growth mindset while their development is more malleable. In any case, a well trained tutor will not only look to demonstrate content knowledge, they look to change a students attitude to learning and educational development trajectory for the better. Change their eigenstate.
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