Tutor Q & A: Should I join a Tutoring Agency?

Tutoring Agencies have traditionally been one of the most popular marketing vehicles for both upcoming and already established tutors.

Image Credit: 123RF

Tutoring Agencies (or TA's) are basically like middlemen. They put time, money and resources into marketing their agencies so that tutors don't have to.

From the outset, TA's can seem very appealing to tutors because they make getting clients a whole lot easier. However they're not a perfect solution for all tutors.

Here are 3 signs you should consider signing up with an Agency:

1. They're niche. In other words, a good agency that's likely to find work for you will most likely be a niche one because parents go to them when they want to find tutors who can teach a specific subject.

Niche agencies tend to be smaller but more focused and often enough, they're usually hunting for tutors who can teach specialist subjects.

2. They have good PR. A reputableTA will most likely put time and effort into getting positive PR from national and local media outlets such as newspapers, magazines and news stations.

If they're scoring PR, they're most likely to be generating awareness which means that they're able to reach a lot of parents which in turn increases your chances of being hired.

3. They take care of their tutors. A good TA understands that it's important to nurture the talent that they have. In other words, they should be willing to provide some form of training, support or advice to you which should help you to improve your work as a tutor. If an Agency signs you onto their books and only reaches out to you when they're desperate for you to take on a students, they're probably not a great company.

If you do choose to sign up with a TA be cautious, be careful and be clear. Ask them questions, do some background research on their company and check the small print (e.g. What commission do they take? Do they support their tutors? etc).

PS. I managed to score some great press in one of the UK's most prestigious newspapers. Take a look at it here.

I'll be sharing the secrets to landing PR in one of my upcoming training materials so keep an eye out for my emails.

Finally, if you have a question that you'd like to ask about your tutoring business- tweet it to me @thetutoress.com and I'll answer your question in a future blog post. You can also find me on Google+.

Wishing you a great week!

Victoria.

Author, Become A Private Tutor & founder of TheTutoress.com

How Tutors can Influence Children's Learning?

 How Tutors can Influence Children's Learning?

People who spend a considerable amount of time with young children create an impact.  For tutors, this impact has to ideally be about their tutees’ learning. 

Creating a positive impact on learning – this is the motive behind every tutor’s curriculum.  Making this possible involves several methods.  It demands a certain level of experimentation in the part of the tutor. 

Furthermore, tutors have to carefully consider the responses made by their tutees.  These identified responses will help tutors decide if they are to proceed with their teaching schemes or hop on another technique.

The following sections explore the different schemes and themes essential in causing a positive learning-impact.

Show how fun it is to learn

Things done in the name of fun endure.    

Tutors who are up against such challenge usually opt to devise a game out of quizzes.  Tutees who are in love with puzzles are given puzzle-laden math problems.  The amount of creativity involved in making learning fun depends in at least two factors:

•       Tutee’s response in these ‘fun’ learning activities
•      Tutor’s willingness to innovate

Show dedication

The tutees may be young, but they aren’t blind.  They can see the hard work tutors spend on the tutorials.  They are aware (though not fully-aware) about the time spent in creating, developing, or procuring learning resources.  They might not show it, but tutees do know.

When tutees see just how much effort their tutor is pouring in tutorials, they can’t help but try their best.  Several stories of dedication do create such a ripple of effect; the most famous of course is inspiration.

Exhibit critical skills

Another interesting variable that tutees could rub off from tutors are their showcased skills.  As a tutor, do you make it a point to listen attentively?  Are you receptive of all kinds of questions – both smart and dumb questions?

Listening, writing, and analytical skills – whatever it is worth showcasing, tutors must illustrate them.  Do those in a consistent fashion and tutees won’t have a problem doing the same. 

Validate virtues

At a tutee’s precocious years, they’re still bound to love hearing good feedback about their performance.  But when tutors step out of the line and commend an exhibited virtue (like patience), they are doing more for the tutee.

Tutors may be bound to the rules of their own benchmarks; but they are also adults.  And as an adult, their role to affirming virtues stays immovable.

Know the tutee’s learning style

To best connect with the child, tutors must see to it that they are well-oriented with the child’s learning style or styles.  This information is guaranteed to save tutors from trouble.  In most cases, neglect to realise the tutee’s learning style could result to a total waste of time: tutors offer a curriculum that doesn’t fit with the child’s learning style, or worse, counters it.

Making lessons that are attuned to the tutee’s learning style is not the only important factor here.  Tutees must also be made aware of their own learning style.  Perhaps, they could be interested with other learning styles. 

Enabling the tutee to realise not just one, but more learning styles is probably, one of the greatest achievements tutors could have.

Evolve with the tutee

Finally, tutors must be able to show ‘growth’ to their tutees to encourage them to grow as well.  This growth may come in the form of knowledge, skills, dreams or aspirations.  In fact, a tutor can weave a path towards their own growth together with their young tutee.  This path should be filled with opportunities.

In this weaving, it would be very important for tutors to prepare clear and accurate answers (in contrast to vague retorts or generalisations).  With such evolution in show, tutees gain realistic insights and not just knowledge.  

About the author:

James Harlan is an aspiring novelist and a young community leader.  His commitment to do well at the university spans wide: he devotes his extra hours for assisting students in their essay assignments, research, and statistics. He merges traditional education with the trending online courses.  He promotes lifelong learning and academic success through his contributions in the blogs, Master Dissertations and Oxbridge Dissertation.

Connect with the author via: Twitter & Google Plus 

Could Cheap Tuition Be Harming Your Child's Education?

I hear it time and time again.

'Your prices are high'

'Tuition is too expensive!'

'I'm just looking for a cheap tutor'

Many parents seem to have a mindset that cheaper is better. But is that really the case?

Do you really think it's safe or wise to place your precious child into the hands of a person who you've hired solely because they're inexpensive?

Do you really believe that it's smart to trust a total stranger to teach your child if they're being underpaid?

Let's reverse roles for a second.

Imagine you're not a parent but instead you're a tutor who is trying to make a living by teaching their knowledge/expertise/wisdom to others. Someone contacts you by phone or email to ask whether you'd be available to teach their child. You say 'yes' and you travel to the parents home to teach. You arrive there and your told that your fees are too high and the parent begs you to charge a few pounds/dollars less. You say 'yes' because you don't want to seem rude or ill-mannered and you start the lesson.

Whilst you'd initially headed over to the house feeling excited about meeting new people, teaching a new student and making a difference. You now feel a little bit different. You feel glum and unmotivated. Naturally, you move from wanting to give your absolute all into teaching this new pupil to feeling far less motivated to teach at an optimal level. Rather than putting in 100% of your energy into the student, you're so bogged down by the fact that you're being underpaid that you put about 70% into the lesson.

Now, step out of the tutors shoes and be a parent again.

Has the 'cheap' parent in this case actually benefited from hiring a 'cheap tutor'?

Realistically, should such a parent expect any tutor (irregardless of experience) to put 100% of their efforts into teaching the student if they're being underpaid?

I'm always amazed that so many parents only think about private tuition from their own viewpoint and they never for one moment consider things from the perspective of the tutor.

The frank truth is that you get what you pay for and if you hire a cheap tutor one of these three things will indefinitely happen:

• The tutor won't give your child 100% of their time and effort. Ultimately, they won't spend money buying, photocopying or printing education resources because they simply can't afford to. That means that your child will receive an inferior level of tuition.
• They'll stick around for a brief period, will teach your child for a few weeks or months and then they'll leave.
• Another parent who's willing to pay the tutor a higher fee will snap the tutor up and the tutor will gladly stop teaching your child.

Just think about how chaotic it would be for a tutor to stop teaching your child a few weeks before their big exam.

It's clear to see that basing your tutor selection on price alone causes havoc both on a long and short term basis.

If you're a smart and savvy parent who really cares about how well their child does, you won't pick a tutor because he/she is 'cheap' or because you can intimidate them into accepting a lower wage.

The moral is that you get what you pay for and quality tutors are not cheap. They're pricey for a reason.

Now I want to hear from you:

Parents, have you hired a cheap tutor? What was the outcome? Leave a comment below.

Tutors, have you been asked to teach for a cheaper fee? Again, leave a comment below and share your experience.

Compound Words List (Ideal For 11+ Exams)

If you've been looking for a compound word list to help your child prepare for their 11+ or SATs exams, you're in the right place.

I've created one which includes 100 of the most popular compound words.

Many of these words have appeared on 11+ Verbal Reasoning and English papers over the past few years so it's important for your child to familiarise themselves with these words.

Here are some examples of popular 11+ compound words to help your child get started.

Food Words

• Pancakes

• Pineapple

• Gingerbread

• Butterscotch

• Watermelon

• Cupcakes

• Popcorn

Plants, nature and herbs

• Peppermint

• Sunflower

• Gooseberry

• Strawberry

• Blueberry

• Bayberry

Sports

• Football

• Basketball

• Netball

• Baseball

• Skateboarding

• Snowball

• Volleyball

Click here to download the full 100 compound word list .

If you'd like me to create more free 11+ resources, tell me what you'd like to see by leaving a comment below.

Christmas wishes,

The Tutoress

Tutor Organization Series: A Tutor's Guide To Organising Your Tutoring Curriculum

I'm super excited to reveal that this post is part of a tutor organization series brought to you by some of the world's top tutoring experts: Adrianne Meldrum (of The Tutor House) and Amy (of Tutors Nirvana). 

As a tutor the prospect of getting organised can seem incredibly daunting. Thoughts like 'how do I plan a lesson?' ' how do I get organised?' and 'how do I keep track of all of my materials?' are likely to run through your mind.

Getting your tutoring curriculum organised isn't just something that's important for new tutors who are just starting out, it's also pertinent for experienced tutors who've been teaching for several months or even years.

People might assume that tutors are naturally quite organised (and yes, most of us are) but getting organised isn't that easy. Today, I'll be sharing some of my most loved tips on this very topic. Buckle up and get ready to take notes! 

How to organise your tutoring curriculum

Firstly, it's important to schedule regular time within your schedule specifically for the purpose of getting organised. Ideally, tutors should spend at least 1 day of each week focusing on planning and preparation as this maximises your chances of being able to handle almost any situation.

One thing that I do is that I have a tutoring diary where I write everything down including lesson plans, expenses and my tutoring schedule. It's pivotal to pick one book, notepad or diary that's used for organising your schedule.

Subject Maps

Once you have a tutoring diary and you have a good idea of your schedule, the next step is to write down what subjects you teach (include all of them- even the ones you teach less frequently) and to then map out a topic plan for each subject.

For instance, if you teach English to primary school students (students under 11 years of age) you might want to cover topics like spelling, grammar, punctuation and creative writing. Once you've mapped out the main topics for each subject, create a new map that highlights all of the topics within that subject, for instance, if you teach English you might break down 'grammar' into sub-topics like prepositions and nouns.

Once you've created these two subject maps, you'll have a much clearer idea of what topics you'll cover during your lessons. Now, I'm sure you're thinking, 'what if the student doesn't need to learn  a topic that I've written down?' That's perfectly fine- you can tweak or amend the subject map whenever you like so that it meets the needs of your students. If you have time, you could even create a subject map for each student you have.

The key is to remember to prioritise organisation in your schedule and give lesson planning greater attention.

In terms of keeping a track of your tutoring files and books, I strongly suggest getting a filing cabinet so that you can file your resources in order of subject/age/student. This makes things so much easier and allows you to easily pick up files without having to worry about where they are. Quite simply, a filing cabinet is a god-send for any tutor who's serious about going pro.

There are also a few more things you can do to stay organised such as:

Arranging books in order of need. In other words, keep the books and resources that you're most likely to need soon in areas that are easy to reach so that you don't have to spend hours looking for them.

Have a file box that contains resources and learning materials that you use most often. Keep materials that you don't desperately need in a filing cabinet and label them so that you know where they are.

Motivate yourself to stay organised by incorporating things you like. For instance, I love all things vintage. To motivate myself to stay organised, I treat myself (on occasion) to vintage inspired stationary. There's something about seeing a pretty vintage notepad, diary, book or organisational resource that gets me excited about staying organised. Could you do the same and incorporate something you love?