Becoming a private tutor- all questions here

therivierakid

amy_lou wrote: »

Is anyone else experiencing exam-stress-by-proxy at the moment?! All three of my A Level girls are doing exams and re-sits right now. Part of me feels so sorry for them, having been through it all myself so recently, and another part is so proud at how far they have come.

One of my French girls has just done her French AS re-sits and got questions in both her written and oral on the use and dangers of mobile phones- so we glad we spent a while practising that a few weeks ago! We have done a lot of grammar, "marqueurs" and essay planning too so I am sure she did fine- it is the marking I worry about, she should NOT have had to resit any of this, from my opinion of her language level, confidence, dedication and how she matched up to the mark scheme.

My Politics student has her resits on this Friday, and the Monday 9 days after (with Business and English resits in between, but thankfully 5 days to focus solely on her synoptic module revision) and she has been doing so many essays and plans for me, I have been really impressed! She used to talk about not understanding most of her main units, and now she is actually excited to be "nearly there" and making the most of her second chance. She is someone who has really benefitted from one-on-one tutoring (as her Politics classes, at a private school I might add, were lacking in the concentration dept) and she always responds so well to constructive criticism.

My other French student does not have any French exams this time, but she does have a History resit tomorrow. She came to me tonight to take her mind off it as she has done all she can for revision, but I could tell she is incredibly nervous just from the way she was acting and speaking. We took it very easy and I gave her a masive hug! She has recently been diagnosed with dyslexia, which is making her question her own ability to write down everything she has tried so hard to learn, although she gets a great deal of help from college.

So all in all, a big few weeks for "my girls" and only a fortnight left with them before I go to start my new job in France. I really hope our work (not to mention their money) has paid off, and the examiners don't screw over my poor Sally Roll on results day!

I've definitely been feeling a bit nervous for most of my A-level students though they've all said that their exams went well afterwards.

I heard about some really good results from my GCSE students who did exams in November. One girl got an A (not a massive surprise), one lad got a C which was a big shock since he said after the exam that he thought he probably would get an E. And another girl doing all of her resits in November got the B she needs to get into her preferred uni. :j:j:j

Next result day is finding out whether my Yr 6 student got into grammar school.

amy_lou_4

Well done! It is so rewarding to see the progress they are making. I will never forget when my least-able French student (who could barely do the present tense in September, while doing AS for the second time :eek:) showed me an essay she had done fo her college tutor, who had commented "You have made fantastic progress, keep up the good work", I was over the moon!

My Politics student had her first of two exams today, two of the questions that came up were ones she done as practise essays with me (one of them she had actually re-read this morning before going in!) and she remembered it all- including introductions and conclusions :beer:
Just Synoptic to go now, I think she will be feeling a bit fed up of it all when I see her on Tuesday so I might do some motivational baking...

jensmile_2

Hi All,

Started my first tutor job yesterday and loving it. Anyway, after that, I put an ad up on vivastreet to drum up business and got a call on my mob this morning. It was a male who was moving into the area in Feb and wanted to start A Levels in September and wanted tutoring now to prepare.

I am a qualified teacher but only teach up to GCSE at mo so I asked him to find out what exam board the A Level would be with but he wasn't sure. It seemed like he wanted some basic English help before the A Level and asked 'is A Level hard etc? I have a C at GCSE but that was ten years ago." In the end I asked him to ring back when he was settled in the area because I didn't know what else to do!
I have no experience with adult learners and although he seemed like a nice chap, what could I tutor him in until he started the course? I feel like ringing back and apologising as my confused tone probably put him of, but I don't feel comfortable taking his money without a clear plan of what to teach.

Anyway had anything like this before?

CAPMguy

you can start using various social networks such as facebook etc and market your services there .... the best thing you can target your own location which gives great opportunities

Annie021063

jensmile wrote: »

Hi All,

Started my first tutor job yesterday and loving it. Anyway, after that, I put an ad up on vivastreet to drum up business and got a call on my mob this morning. It was a male who was moving into the area in Feb and wanted to start A Levels in September and wanted tutoring now to prepare.

I am a qualified teacher but only teach up to GCSE at mo so I asked him to find out what exam board the A Level would be with but he wasn't sure. It seemed like he wanted some basic English help before the A Level and asked 'is A Level hard etc? I have a C at GCSE but that was ten years ago." In the end I asked him to ring back when he was settled in the area because I didn't know what else to do!
I have no experience with adult learners and although he seemed like a nice chap, what could I tutor him in until he started the course? I feel like ringing back and apologising as my confused tone probably put him of, but I don't feel comfortable taking his money without a clear plan of what to teach.

Anyway had anything like this before?

I would be very wary TBH, anyone who has done GCSE would know how hard A levels are, I would not touch this until you can see he has a place on the course and you know who is providing the exam, also be careful with your safety here. Just a word of warning

jensmile_2

Thanks Annie think you're right. Think he was just clueless (An A Level in English, I was alright at a school, that'll be fine then! Oh look a tutor, I'll give her a ring!) rather than dangerous but you never know.

amy_lou_4

Hiya Jen!
If you know which college the guy is going to go to you could always pre-emptively ask the English dept which exam board they use. Really I think he ought to do this himself but remember, not all people are clued up on how exams work and that courses are all different with a varying syllabus! In the meantime you could always just give him a reading list of classic literature to get him back into the swing of things :-)
Was it English Language or Literature that he wants to do, or both?

therivierakid

Elliee2010 wrote: »

I agree £5 a hour is very low, It all depends on the part of the country and the demand but its always better to quote high and offer a special discount. Its almost impossible to increase a rate without causing problems.

£5 an hour isn't even minimum wage!

anitamarie

Wow, this thread has spiralled since I was last here!

£5 an hour is too low: a) you need to factor in your travel, b) you'll have to prepare a lesson as well and c) it won't be credible to most parents.

I think we have a bottom cap of £9 per hour for tutors to avoid a bottom end price war.

We've actually just today made First Tutors free for tutors to advertise and made the announcements, etc, because we want to attract more tutors. So, if you know anyone who wants advice, please send them my way either with a private message or to the website. Obviously can't put the URL.

If the PM inbox is full, bear with me, 50 messages doesn't give you much breathing space.

dizziblonde

£5's far too low - it sounds good on the surface - but when you add in the time it takes to prepare lessons/resources etc (I'm lucky I've got a few kids at a similar level so can double-up on planning a tad and just differentiate how I teach it to to their particular areas of weakness) it mounts up a lot.

I tend to spend a good day every 3-4 weeks or so planning for the next month for all my kids - and that's working solidly from about 10am (well if I'm not out supply teaching I've got to allow myself a little lie-in ) and finally getting finished up about 4pm ish. Luckily my "main" job is flexible enough that I can do that, and I've found planning a few weeks ahead gets over that feeling that tutoring's taking over your life that you can get from it all if you're doing it alongside day work.

I'm going to have to open up another evening with the enquiries I'm getting at the moment (I try to block tutoring together so I'm out for a few hours at a time) - I'm down to weekend slots only until I free up another evening to take more work on... if indeed I want to - but I'm going to lose my Y6 kids in the summer so need to get some younger children coming up through the system.