Choosing a tutor: what actually moves a grade

Most people choose a tutor on the hourly rate, the subject, and whether the tutor sounds pleasant on the phone. None of the three predicts whether a grade moves. What does is duller to shop for: which marks are actually being lost, whether the tutor teaches the specification the student will sit, and whether sessions come often enough for a correction to stick. Tutoring works; it also fails quietly and expensively.

The first session should be a diagnosis, and it should be slightly uncomfortable

A student who "can't do maths" can almost always do most of it. The grade is held down by a few nameable things: two or three topics never learned, method marks lost by not writing the working down, questions misread, the last twenty minutes never reached. Four causes, four different remedies — only one of which is more teaching. A tutor who starts teaching in the first ten minutes has skipped the step that decides everything.

A diagnosis looks like this: the student sits a recent paper under near-exam conditions; the tutor marks it against the published mark scheme and says where the marks went — not "she needs to work on algebra" but "she lost fourteen marks: six on simultaneous equations, five on not showing method in questions she got right, three she never reached". Ask for it in writing after the second session. A tutor who cannot produce it is not measuring anything, which means you aren't either.

The exam board matters more than the subject

"GCSE maths" is not one qualification. AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and Eduqas each publish their own specification, with its own paper structure, wording habits and marking conventions. Wales largely uses WJEC, whose England-facing brand is Eduqas; Northern Ireland has CCEA. Scotland is a different system altogether — no GCSEs, but National 5s and Highers awarded by the SQA — so "GCSE maths" is not what a Scottish pupil sits. Set texts in English literature differ by board and often by school, so a tutor teaching the wrong novel is not marginally less useful. They are useless.

Establish the board before the first paid hour: the exams office will tell you, and the statement of entry lists the specification codes. Boards publish specifications, mark schemes, past papers and examiner reports free on their sites, though the latest year's papers are usually held back for schools for a while. The examiner report says where last year's cohort lost marks — a tutor who has read it works from evidence, one who hasn't works from memory of their own schooldays.

The tier decision can be worth more than a term of tutoring

In tiered subjects — maths, the sciences and the modern languages — the paper comes in two versions, Foundation and Higher, and the tier sets both a ceiling and a floor on the grade available. Entered too low, a student is capped below their target however well they perform; entered too high, they can land under the floor and come away with very little.

The school decides, usually off mock results. The entry goes in during the spring term; a tier change after that is an amendment with its own later deadline, set by the exam board — free up to a point, then chargeable, then impossible. The dates are on your board's key dates page (AQA's is here); the Joint Council for Qualifications coordinates exam rules across boards, but the board sets the date. Ask which tier your child is down for, and ask in the autumn.

Frequency, not length

The instinct is one long session a week. The evidence on one-to-one tuition points the other way: short regular sessions across a defined block of weeks, tied to what is happening in class. In practice that means several short sessions rather than one long one — a correction has to arrive while the mistake is still live, and the back half of a two-hour sitting is mostly fatigue. Nor is one-to-one automatically the best buy: the same toolkit rates small groups of two or three about as well.

So buy a block with an end date and a re-test: an open-ended standing order has no moment at which anyone asks whether it worked.

The signs parents mishear as good news

Good signs: the tutor asked for a recent paper, the school's report and the exam board before turning up; the student did most of the writing; the tutor named what to fix next and how they will know when it is fixed. Bad signs: a generic worksheet and "we'll just go through whatever homework they've got" every week — the timetable is steering and nobody is treating the gaps. And the one that sounds best of all: the student says the hour was relaxing and flew by. Sessions that move grades are tiring.

Nobody regulates tutoring, so the checking is yours

Private tutoring here is unregulated: no licence, no register, no required qualification, no legal obligation to hold a criminal record check. Since 21 January 2026 a self-employed tutor can apply for an Enhanced DBS check in their own name, provided the work is eligible and the application goes through an umbrella body that takes self-employed applicants — they cannot apply to DBS directly. So "I'm self-employed, I can't get one" is no longer true: see the DBS guidance for self-employed people.

A tutor who says they hold QTS can download their certificate from the DfE's Access your teaching qualifications service. The service that checks a teacher's record is open only to organisations — schools, colleges, supply agencies — which is why you have to ask to see it rather than look it up. No listing, ours included, is a substitute for reading the certificate and its date yourself — however you found the tutor: school, friend, or a directory like We Connect You.

The cheapest hour is usually the most expensive outcome

What matters is not the rate but the rate times the hours needed to reach the outcome. A tutor at half the price who needs three times the sessions and never raises the tier question is more expensive twice over.

The most expensive mistake is starting in March. Tutoring changes grades when a term remains in which to act on the diagnosis: time to relearn two topics, rebuild a habit, and argue about tier if necessary. By spring you are buying exam technique, which is real but small. So ask any tutor you are considering what they don't think can be fixed in the time left. The ones worth paying will tell you.

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This is general information about how a process works, not advice about your situation. Thresholds, fees and deadlines change — check the official source linked above for the current figures, or ask a professional who can see your circumstances.