So I’m packing in my job on a career break for a few years to become a stay-at-home dad to my youngling, and I’m considering taking up tutoring as a part-time flexible income. This board’s full of smart cookies, so there must be a few Brits who do it. Walk me through it?
My strengths are in history and politics, but am also casually interested in science too.
What does a typical tutoring session involve? At what key stages?
First of all, have you got any teaching experience or qualifications?
Are you familiar with the current curriculum and exams?
I’m a retired teacher and know of several colleagues who tutor privately in academic subjects. They have both of the above.
My own experience is tangential - I do both chess and bridge coaching!
Undergrad in history, Masters in politics. I’m a part-time tour guide out of hours of my current job, so my public speaking/explaining of ideas to laymen seems alright. No specific teaching qualifications, though.
Oh, and I’m going to read up on the current curriculum and exams with the help of a teacher friend of mine.
A few friends have done it, who do not have teaching qualifications (they were university students at the time). It was Maths in both cases, a subject where understanding is far more important than curriculum, in a way that probably isn’t quite as true for history and politics, or sciences for that matter.
My parents briefly tried to get me a tutor when I was at school, but it didn’t go well, the problem being that I didn’t really give a crap about the subject, which wasn’t really something the poor sod could fix.
As to key stages, it’s going to depend on a few things; where I used to live, there were two grammar schools with a lot of competition to get in, and getting tutoring prior to the entrance exam (age 10-11) was popular. Here that isn’t as much of a thing, and the ads I normally see are just focused on GSCEs and A levels, which I’d expect to be the standard.