BlogStudyWhat To Do If You Don’t Like Your Child’s Tutor

What To Do If You Don’t Like Your Child’s Tutor

Wondering what you should do after realising you don’t like the tutor you’ve hired to help your child?

I am going to explain how you can identify exactly what it is that you do not like about the tutor as well as show you some ways to improve the situation.

1. The Phone Call

The phone call should actually be the first time you properly have a conversation with the tutor. The tutor should introduce himself/herself and ask a few questions about the needs of the student.

This is the time where you help identify what you think are the needs of your child, what the tutor can help your child with and what success looks like. Once this is done, it is appropriate to book a time for your first lesson.

Here at Art of Smart Education we have a 24 hour call policy whereby the coach must call the parent/guardian within 24 hours after receiving a new student.

The conversation should be professional, informative, and secure a start date that both parties are happy with. The phone call should last between 5-10 minutes.

Potential questions to ask yourself:

  • Was the tutor professional?
  • Was the conversation informative?
  • Did you outline the needs of your child as well as set out what success looks like for you?

If you already have concerns you should either contact the tutoring agency or call the tutor back – they should be very happy to answer any more questions that you have.

2. The First Lesson

The tutor should be punctual, ready to teach and have any subject specific resources that they need. Invite the tutor in and tell them where you would like them to work with your child e.g. study, kitchen table etc.

The tutor may invite you to sit on in the first lesson if you like (to improve transparency and to be friendly) but ideally the goal is for the tutor to work with the student 1-on-1 without the parent as it is more comfortable.

The first lesson should start with a quick ice-breaker between the tutor and the student. This should then be followed with the teaching of the examinable content. The tutor should use a syllabus to guide them and your child if necessary.

Five minutes before the conclusion of the lesson, the tutor may outline a plan of action for the next lesson, identify one way the student can improve their study habits, and set some homework if necessary. This will of course vary based on the student, the subject and the particular goals that have been set.

3. Feedback

After the lesson you should be able to provide honest feedback about how the lesson went.

At Art of Smart Education, we contact our customers the same week to ask how the lesson went and if there are any particular things they want us to pass on to the tutor. If there are any concerns, they are easily addressed at this stage.

What’s important to note is that even the very best teachers can’t perform miracles. It will often take a few lessons for signs of improvement to become evident. It also often takes a few lessons for the tutor to build a rapport with the student.

4. Solutions

If you or your child is not happy with the tutor and you have tried communicating with them about what the issue is, it is perfectly acceptable to ask for a different tutor. Sometimes (despite best efforts and intentions) a child might not respond favourably to a particular tutor’s demeanour and method of explanation.

Your child may not get along with the tutor because there is/are:

  • A personality clash
  • A conflict of values
  • Cultural misunderstandings
  • Language barriers
  • Lack of clarity surrounding communication

If you think your child could benefit from an Academic Coach and Mentor, give Art of Smart a call on 1300 267 88!

Good Luck!

Have a question for us?

We’ve helped over 2,500 students achieve an average mark increase of 19.41%! Flick us a message on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/artofsmart/), give us a call on 1300 267 888, or email us on [email protected].


Thomas Woolley loves Economics and Business Studies. He completed his HSC in 2013 and has been working at Art of Smart since 2014. He enjoys helping out his students whilst studying B Commerce / B Education at UNSW to become an actual economics/business studies teacher in 2018. Since high school Thomas has also learned to scuba dive, salsa dance, and he can fly a quadcopter like a pro. However, he still cannot skateboard.

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