Tuition is seen as an effective way to support and develop a child’s education. It provides them with a personal mentor and an older role model that they can rely on outside of the usual parent / teacher role models. Tutoring can be a great resource, helping to provide encouragement and confidence to children feeling frustrated by their schoolwork. However, this doesn’t mean that all children should be tutored. This is especially true if the child isn’t being given time to relax and switch off from learning and focus their attention on other interests.
There are various pros and cons to tutoring which can often make it difficult for parents to decide whether or not to invest in tuition. Let’s look at a few reasons you might want to hire a tutor.
Making sure your child doesn’t fall behind
The main argument for hiring a tutor is it helps to ensure your child is ready to progress in line with their peers. With pressures on teachers and the impacts of covid school closures still being felt, it is very difficult for them to give each child the attention they need to ensure they don’t fall behind. If a child falls behind it can have a massive impact on their future progress. Nowhere is this more important than in their transitionary period from primary to middle school age (7-12). Instilling confidence and joy in learning is key at this age!
Having help from a trained professional at home is an invaluable asset. It allows problems to be resolved before they grow into bigger issues. A skilled tutor will be able to identify a child’s weaknesses and take steps to resolve them.
Providing professional advice with entrance exams
When applying to top schools, there are techniques that every student needs to be familiar with in order to be a successful candidate. Choosing a quality tutor allows students to have access to a variety of trick and tips that can dramatically improve your child’s score. Most accomplished tutors will have vast experience of working with pupils and preparing them for exams. They will be able to share their own special techniques and pieces of knowledge that will get the best out of their pupils, putting them in a good position to be successful in their entrance exam.
Making education personal
Although a majority of tutoring is now done online, there still is a personal nature to online tutoring. This comes from the personalised aspect of the lessons and the relationship built between the tutor and the child. Introducing your child to a responsible adult with a positive view on education means providing him or her with an excellent role model. The support of someone reliable that shares your values and attitudes to education is invaluable.
Making life easier
One of the benefits of tutoring that is not mentioned too often, is it removes the need for parents to push education onto their child in a stressful way. The tutor can be the one to soak up any opposition to doing lessons, leaving the parents to enjoy the time they have with their children.
Times when tutoring may not be suitable
Trying to compensate for bad home habits
Regular bedtimes and mealtimes are essential to good academic performance; children simply can’t work well if they’re either hungry or tired. If you’re thinking about getting a tutor, ask first what you can do to improve the situation – it might be that, by implementing a solid home routine and insisting on a few maths problems every morning and reading at night, the problems disappear without any money being spent.
Your child isn’t relaxing or being rewarded enough
Bad behaviour and poor grades at school can be indications of fatigue, rather than a lack of ability. Therefore, any parent considering tutoring should ask whether their child could actually do with some more time to relax and have fun. Fun means doing whatever the child wants to do! If your child is overworked and not being rewarded for good work at school, consider giving them more time to do what they want, before you ask them to take on extra lessons.
Primary Tutor Project has been offering online tuition to primary aged children since 2020, working with some of the very best British qualified tutors in the UK. Should you be interested in tuition or school entrance support, get in touch here.
