7 Benefits Of One To One Tutoring Every School Leader Should Know

One-to-one tutoring has incredible benefits for primary school and secondary school students. It can cater to each student’s needs and help them reach their full potential and academic success. And, it can also nurture a student’s self-esteem on a subject matter and of their whole self.

This guide is designed to give school leaders a better understanding of the benefits of one-to-one tutoring and why you should implement it to improve academic performance and enhance students’ learning experience.

What is one-to-one tutoring?

One-to-one tutoring is typically a tutoring programme with one tutor for every student. A one-to-one tutor only works with one student at a time. This helps meet the student’s individual needs and learning needs from the first lesson and provides them with personalised teaching to accelerate progress.

Often, schools use one-on-one tutoring as an intervention strategy for core subjects, such as English or maths. The teaching strategies are the same as in a traditional classroom setting. However, personalised attention for individual students means the tutor can meet the student’s specific needs and areas of development, and closely monitor each child’s progress.

One-on-one tutoring can take place in person or online. Both aim to accelerate a student’s progress and provide a deeper understanding of the topics they need extra help with.

In person one-to-one tutoring

In person tutoring involves the tutor coming to the school, or using a current staff member. This usually takes place face-to-face. The private tutor or staff member may talk to the class teacher before and after the lesson, to discuss each child’s progress and performance. However, you are unlikely to receive formal reports after each session unless requested.

While learning is personalised for each student, the tutor can only work with one student at a time for this to truly be one-to-one tutoring. Hiring multiple in person one-to-one tutors can be costly.

Online one-to-one tuition

Online tuition usually takes place through interactive software. Sophisticated tutoring organisations use bespoke interactive classrooms with specific tools and lesson slides.

Using one-on-one online support means multiple students experience the benefits of tutoring simultaneously. Many students can log on to an online platform to interact with tutors at the same time. Often this is more affordable than in person one-on-one tutoring and more beneficial than in person group tutoring.

What are the benefits of one-to-one tutoring? 

Choosing to hire a one-to-one maths tutor may take some consideration. But, ultimately, the results and benefits of one-on-one tutoring speak for themselves. 

1. Individual attention from a one-to-one tutor

Undivided attention for each student is one of the biggest benefits of one-to-one tutoring.

Every teacher has a few students in their class that they wish they could give undivided attention to because they would make incredible progress. But, in a class of 30 students, this isn’t possible.

One-on-one tutoring helps students receive the time and attention they need to understand the lesson concepts to keep up in class and reach age-related expectations by the end of Key Stage 2, their GCSEs or A-levels.

2. Personalised learning 

One-to-one tuition allows individualised learning plans to be tailored to each student’s academic needs, learning style, and pace. 

This personalisation ensures that students focus on the objectives they need help with most, closing the attainment gap. 

Additionally, in one-on-one tutoring sessions, tutors can adapt teaching, pitch, pace and teaching strategies to suit the student’s strengths, weaknesses, and preferred learning modalities. This creates a deeper understanding and leads to mastery. 

Third Space Learning offers personalised online primary tuition and secondary tutoring programmes to help students reach their full potential and close the maths attainment gap.

We’ve had phenomenal results using Third Space Learning. The tutoring really enhances pupils’ mathematical education, I have a lot of confidence in it.

Stacey Atkins, Director of Maths, Outwood Grange Academies Trust

3. Flexible scheduling 

One-to-one tutoring sessions offer flexibility to schedule sessions around busy school timetables, particularly when opting for a tutoring service with online lessons. 

Flexible scheduling allows schools to integrate tutoring at times most conducive to learning and least disruptive for students, whether it’s early morning or late afternoon. 

With Third Space Learning, you can change your lesson time, and increase or decrease the number of weekly sessions. 

Such flexible scheduling also reduces the risk of students missing whole class learning for the same subject each week, enhancing accessibility to a broad curriculum.

4. Reduced learning gaps 

One-on-one tutoring provides targeted learning to help close students’ learning gaps in addition to the support they receive in the classroom setting. 

With personalised tutoring, specific learning gaps can be addressed immediately helping students close the attainment gap and reach age-related or GCSE grade-level expectations. 

Tutors can spend time re-teaching foundational concepts that students may have missed and otherwise wouldn’t have time to do in class, preventing those gaps from widening. 

Consistent one-to-one support helps students catch up to their peers and improves overall academic performance.

5. Immediate feedback

Feedback during one-to-one tutoring is immediate and personalised, making it more effective. When teachers have 30 students, feedback isn’t usually immediate. If it is whole class feedback, it usually isn’t personalised.

When working one-on-one with a private tutor, students receive immediate feedback to help personalise the learning process. Students can action feedback in the same session, helping them make connections the next time they tackle a similar question.

Established tutoring programmes such as Third Space Learning offer free resources to support students’ progress. With a full lesson report for every student provided to schools after each session, schools and teachers can provide students with the appropriate resources to practice according to feedback.

6. Builds confidence

Students need to feel comfortable in their learning environment to participate and engage in learning. For students with anxiety, particularly maths anxiety, this isn’t always the case.

A one-to-one environment through in person or online tutoring with a highly-trained tutor creates a low-stakes environment for the student. They are more likely to share their thinking and reasoning if they aren’t worried about getting the answer wrong.

One-to-one tuition provides a safe, relaxed space to learn in, where students might feel comfortable making mistakes. Most learning doesn’t come from getting an answer right; we learn from misconceptions. 

One-to-one tutoring also offers nervous or shy learners a chance to practice answering questions outside the classroom. This helps boost their confidence and develop a growth mindset.

7. One to one tutoring is better value-for-money 

At first, one-on-one tutoring can seem like the more expensive option. If you choose private tuition, it can be. But, a benefit of one-to-one tutoring that takes place online is cost efficiency. 

Individual tutoring accelerates a student’s progress beyond classroom teaching and even small group tuition because of the extra time and attention invested in each student’s learning. 

Schools and districts have funding options to help pay for one-to-one tutoring, including pupil premium funding. 

Third Space Learning believes that one-on-one maths tutoring should be available to all students, it’s not just for those who can afford a private tutor in the comfort of your own home.  Tutoring helps accelerate progress and close the maths attainment gap. For this reason, we keep tutoring pricing affordable for schools to help as many students as possible. 

One-to-one tutoring has many benefits

The benefits of one-on-one tutoring are abundant, it:

• Individualises and targets learning to close attainment gaps;
• Accelerate progress;
• Provides immediate feedback;
• Build learners’ confidence;
• Creates good study habits and skills.   

One-to-one tutoring is the most effective way to target students in need of intervention outside of a classroom setting. If you’re still unsure, studies on one-to-one tuition from the EEF highlight the evidence to support it.  

How can Third Space Learning support one-on-one maths tutoring? 

For over a decade, Third Space Learning has provided one-to-one maths tuition and maths interventions from highly qualified DBS-checked tutors to disadvantaged students. Here’s how it works.

Schools choose which students need additional maths support and schedule sessions to suit their students and school timetable. 

Because you know your students best you pick from our selection of tutoring programmes for primary and secondary school students created by maths experts to meet the individual needs of each student.  

Tutors provide an initial diagnostic assessment followed by ongoing formative assessment to inform and adapt teaching strategies and meet the pitch and pace of the student. 

At the end of each session, students complete post-session questions for the tutor to assess the student’s understanding of the learning objectives covered. Schools receive a progress report for each student, after every session to easily track student progress. 

Once students complete the selected maths tutoring programme, they take a summative assessment to track the progress made across the whole programme. 

Because Third Space Learning’s one-to-one tutoring sessions are online, schools can support multiple students simultaneously without adding to teachers’ workloads. 

Benefits of one-on-one tutoring FAQs