What should a tutor not do while teaching?
The involvement of a tutor can be valuable to all children. They benefit from one-to-one support and are able to flourish through extra assistance in their studies, which will then result in additional self-confidence. But what should a tutor not do?
As with any profession, there are some bad tutors out there. This can be either related to an inability to explain concepts in a manner that their students understand or refusal to adapt to their needs.
When assessing the effectiveness of your child’s tutor, you need to look out for a few red flags.
Five things a good tutor shouldn’t do
A lot of red flags can be obvious when working with a tutor. Concerns such as your child not progressing as well as you had both hoped, dreading upcoming sessions and not understanding any of the taught material.
Here are five things to be aware of when evaluating whether this is a good tutor or not.
Be too strict
A good tutor will be able to control your child and create an optimal working space. This does not include building a fear in them and making them too scared to ask any questions they have. The best kind of tutors invite an air of comfort and encourage their students to clarify any areas they are unsure of.
A scary tutor is often not a good one as they take away from the personal setting of one-to-one support.
Under-prepare for sessions
If the tutor is always turning up without any planned activities or study materials then chances are they will not help your child at all. Planning out thought-provoking and interesting lessons are part of the job description for tutors, so if they are not doing this then they are not fully carrying out their side of the arrangement.
Speed through the content too quickly
Many of us can remember a teacher at school who would go through the content so quickly that the whole class leaves the lesson confused and stressed.
This is something that should absolutely not happen with a tutor. The benefit of them is that they can dedicate the time to making sure your child is comfortable with the topic before moving on.
Bring their personal life to lessons
There should always be boundaries between a tutor and their student. These can be crossed when the tutor brings aspects of their personal life to the sessions. Not only is it inappropriate but also will mean their student may be concentrating on something outside of the curriculum.
Refuse to be flexible
There will be times where you need the tutor to be flexible around yours and your child’s schedule. The refusal to reschedule any sessions or adapt to you will mean that you should be looking for a new tutor.
The perfect arrangement will be based on mutual respect which means being flexible with each other.
Discuss concerns with your tutor
There are a range of other things a tutor should not do but these will become obvious as you go. Don’t be afraid to discuss any problems you have with the tutor themselves. It may be a simple misunderstanding or something they will be able to work on.