When’s the best time to get a maths tutor?

We tutor students from primary age right through to A level studies and have experience of taking students right through their maths education, whilst also providing an exams-focused late push for a higher grade. So … how do you decide whether, and when, to enlist the services of a maths tutor?

The main reasons we come across for parents contacting us are as follows:

• A poor exam result (often for a mock or end-of-year exam)

• Dissatisfaction with teaching at school

• Aspiration to move up ability sets

• Early recognition that being good at maths is very important - in life, as a service subject supporting other curriculum subjects and as, arguably, the GCSE (along with English) and A level qualifications with the most currency.

  
  

A key factor, of course, is cost. Employing an effective maths tutor is certainly an investment in your child’s eduction, but not everyone is in a position to sustain the ongoing cost over several years. On a slightly different point, but also relating to cost, it’s worth bearing in mind that securing tutoring through an agency will typically (but invisibly) involve you paying a large chunk of commission.

Other factors to consider are the following:

• The more sessions are completed, the more progress can be made and starting at an earlier age allows time to lay strong foundations and cover the full curriculum

• Organising a tutor in the spring or summer - in preparation for a September start - gives you a much better opportunity to get a strong tutor in place. (Tutors get lots of enquiries in September and October and availability, for the best, is likely to be very limited).

• Although it’s certainly possible to get good late impact, e.g. from January through to summer exams, it is important to understand that only work on selected topics will be possible, in combination with exam practice work. In this situation, the more a student understand their strengths and weaknesses, the more effective the tuition can be.