Parents interviewing a prospective tutor tend to ask about qualifications, rate and availability. All three matter, and none of them predicts whether a child will make progress.
Subject knowledge is necessary and nowhere near sufficient. The questions below separate a tutor who will help from one who will simply be present twice a week.
"How will you work out what they already know?"
A good answer describes finding out where the understanding stops — which is usually well before the topic the child is currently failing.
A weak answer is a plan to start at the current syllabus point and go faster. A student who is lost in Chapter 7 is very often lost because of something in Chapter 3, and going faster through Chapter 7 widens the gap rather than closing it.
"What will you do when they get something wrong?"
Listen for whether the tutor talks about finding out why the answer was wrong.
Re-explaining the same method more slowly and more loudly is the most common failure in tutoring, and it is what most struggling students have already had a great deal of. A wrong answer is information; a tutor who treats it as an obstacle rather than a clue will not get far.
Ask how they will find out what the student already knows, what they do when an answer is wrong, and what progress should look like in a month. A tutor who answers those three specifically has a method. One who answers in generalities has a rate.
"What will I see after a month?"
A tutor who can describe what progress will look like — a specific kind of question the child will be able to attempt independently — has a plan.
One who promises a grade jump has a sales pitch. Grades move at the pace of examinations; capability moves weekly, and capability is the thing you can actually observe.
"What should we do between sessions?"
Two hours a week does not move a grade on its own. The tutor should have a view on what happens in the other one hundred and sixty-six, even if it is small and specific.
"Twenty minutes on these five questions before Thursday" is a plan. "Just keep practising" is not.
| Ask | A strong answer | A weak answer |
|---|---|---|
| How will you assess where they are? | Describes diagnosing backwards from the failure | "We will start with the current topic" |
| What do you do with wrong answers? | Finds out why before correcting | "I explain it again" |
| What will a month look like? | A named, observable capability | A promised grade |
| What happens between sessions? | A specific, small task | "Revision" |
| How will we know it is not working? | Suggests a review point | Deflects |
"How will you keep me informed?"
A parent who hears nothing for a term has no way to tell a productive silence from an unproductive one. Ask what you will receive and how often — a short note after each session, or a brief summary weekly, is enough.
It should describe what was covered and where the student struggled, not simply confirm attendance. A tutor who can write two honest sentences about a difficulty is a tutor who noticed one.
Watch the first three sessions
You learn more from the first three sessions than from any interview. Does the student talk, or only listen? Do they attempt things, or watch them being done? Do they seem less anxious about the subject afterwards, or more?
A tutor doing this well produces a student who tries something without being asked. That is the earliest reliable signal, and it appears long before a grade does.
Verify before the first session
Confirm identity and qualifications before the first session, not after it. Meet in a shared room in the home rather than behind a closed door, and keep it that way — this is normal practice and a good tutor will expect it.
A tutor who is uncomfortable with any of that has told you something useful, and you should listen to it.
Agree the exit in advance
Put in writing what happens if it is not working after a month: how much notice, whether anything is refundable, and who decides.
Agreeing that while everyone is optimistic is far easier than negotiating it while somebody is disappointed, and having agreed it makes the honest conversation possible at week four rather than month four.
The thing that actually predicts progress
Across all of these questions one quality shows up: whether the tutor is curious about this particular student, or delivering a fixed lesson at them. The first kind asks questions in the interview as well as answering them. That is the signal worth hiring on.
