School tutors FAQs
What are school tutors?
School tutors are staff that support pupils and their whole class teaching. Unlike homeschooling, school tutors don’t aim to replace whole-class teaching, but instead enhance it. School tutors should work closely with the pupil’s primary teacher or subject teacher at secondary to ensure tutoring sessions align with whole class teaching. School tutors can be internal staff or external staff provided by a tutoring agency. School tutors traditionally work face to face with pupils, however many school tutors now work online, using specially designed online learning environments to engage and motivate their pupils. Research by the EEF has shown that online tutoring is just as effective as in person tutoring, and may have additional benefits including costs and flexibility.
How do I find a good school tutor?
It can be difficult to hire good school tutors, especially for subjects such as maths and physics where there are fewer qualified and experienced tutors who specialise in these subjects. This is especially true for rural schools. Quality education shouldn’t be a postcode lottery and schools can look to external providers to help. There are many different tutoring services available for schools, so it’s important that SLT, headteachers and subject leads consider their own context and what they need from a tutoring service. For example, if they want online or in-person tutoring, one to one or small group tuition, etc. At Third Space Learning, we make it easy for schools to access our community of high-quality, maths specialist tutors. We interview, train and conduct background checks on our tutors so you can rest assured your pupils are left in safe hands.
What age is best to get a tutor?
School tutors work with pupils of any age, from KS1 up to A-level. Younger pupils may struggle to stay engaged and focused for a long period of time, so KS1 is the earliest age we’d recommend. Many schools wait until exam years, such as Years 6 & 11, to start tutoring however this can be too late! Starting tutoring earlier will help to close gaps as they occur and allow pupils to keep up with their classmates. We provide tutoring for primary schools (Year 3-5 catch up, Year 6 catch up & SATs revision) and secondary schools (Year 7 catch up & GCSE revision).
Looking for something else?
To discover more about in school tutoring with Third Space Learning follow these links:
- A primary maths tutor is an expert you can trust
- Primary school tuition that provides results
- A GCSE maths tutor guaranteed to get results
- Online GCSE maths tutors working one to one to support your year 10s and 11s