Building Your Reputation: 7 Best Practices Every Tutor Should Know
Written By Scholarly’s Editorial Minion, Rashini D Selvasegaran
Are you ready to start teaching? Being a tutor comes with a sense of responsibility to your students and yourself. New and seasoned tutors consistently self-evaluate themselves against a set of best practices. Doing so will equip you with a stellar reputation and build trust amongst parents and students. Review our checklist to prepare for your upcoming lessons and ensure you have these best practices in mind when starting your tutoring journey.
1. Establish Open Communication With Parents
The first step to becoming an excellent tutor is communicating openly with parents. Establishing clear and transparent communication is pivotal to ensuring parents effectively communicate with tutors regarding their child's goals, struggles, and expectations of the classes.
Suggestion: Have a physical book as your tuition log
Keeping a tuition log for each student forms a habit of tracking down lesson dates, class durations, materials covered, and homework given. This aids in clear communication as it keeps parents in the loop regarding their child's progress. Moreover, if the parents are comfortable, suggest having a group channel on WhatsApp or Telegram to disseminate instructions to your students while allowing the parents to oversee their child's tuition activities.
2. Stay On Top Of Your Classes
Parents will likely retain a tutor who remembers their lessons or is consistently punctual for their classes. On your part as a tutor, staying organised can be easy with the help of tools like Notion or Google Calendar to keep you up to date with your commitments.
If you need help using these tools, click the links below to learn more!
Take Note: If you foresee being unable to attend a lesson, inform the parents in advance. Avoid waiting until the last minute unless it's an emergency.
3. Stay Organised With Lesson Plans
One of the best traits of a tutor is creating a detailed lesson plan for their students. A lesson plan is a structured outline of all the teaching goals and strategies you aim to deliver to your students. Every lesson plan should include these 3 factors:
1. Learning Objectives: Clear goals for what your students should achieve.
2. Learning Activities: The tasks/activities that will be implemented to help your students meet these objectives.
3. Assessment: The methods used to evaluate student understanding. For example, weekly quizzes, revision tests, spelling and trivia.
Here are some free resources to create lesson plans for your students!
Remember: You should create a customised lesson plan for each student to effectively address their unique needs, goals, and learning styles.
4. Be Committed To Your Students
Before applying and accepting a tuition assignment, assess your ability to provide your students with valuable knowledge. Furthermore, only take on assignments if you can commit to the entire teaching period. For example, most parents would want one tutor to teach their child throughout the academic year. If you are currently a student and foresee having prior commitments, apply for short-term assignments to avoid cancelling on your students halfway through the semester.
Tutors looking to build up their credentials can apply for assignments through us! Our mobile application, Scholarly, allows parents and students to leave reviews for tutors based on criteria such as teaching skills, performance, and dedication to their students! The best part? It’s all free!
Did you know? Tutors who strongly commit to their students quickly build up their reputation as dedicated tutors?
5. Be Honest About Your Qualifications
Suppose you are just starting as a tutor, and imposter syndrome hinders your confidence in applying for assignments. Do not lose hope! We want you to know that it is normal to feel nervous if your resume only has a few qualifications.
Everyone starts somewhere!
Being honest about your qualifications is essential as it showcases your integrity as a tutor. Being dishonest in hopes of obtaining a higher salary or attracting more students can make you inadequately prepared for lessons. When parents review their child's progress and request for a tutor's qualifications, dishonesty could jeopardise your professional reputation!
With Scholarly, verifying your profile is not mandatory; however, it is strongly encouraged as you will receive a ‘verified’ badge beside it! This makes you stand out and boosts your confidence as a tutor.
6. Benefits of Upskilling for Tutors
Whether you're a new tutor just starting out or an experienced educator looking to enhance your skills, upskilling is essential to stay skilful in the competitive private tuition industry. As a tutor, continuous professional development helps you stay updated with the latest teaching methods and educational technologies, ensuring you can deliver quality education to your students. Moreover, it enhances your credibility, making you more appealing to parents seeking quality education for their children.
Tutors interested in upskilling can visit Stamford Classroom, a platform dedicated to upskilling tutors through workshops led by experienced former MOE educators. This collaboration aims to equip both new and experienced tutors with essential classroom pedagogy and teaching strategies used by MOE teachers.
Stamford Classroom aims to enhance tutors' skill sets to enrich their students' learning experiences, ensuring they receive quality education tailored to their individual needs.
7. Do Not Overcharge Your Students
It is tempting to charge higher fees for your tuition assignments. However, overcharging your students could damage your credibility and deter potential job offers. Knowing the market rate for part-time and full-time private tutors is crucial to ensuring your students receive a fair and quality education. Furthermore, it's the correct and ethical thing to do!
Below are guidelines for the market rates for private tutors in Singapore:
Now that you are equipped with the 7 best practices of a tutor, we hope you will consider and review these steps regularly during your tutoring journey! If you have not checked out our recent article on How To Start Your Tutoring Journey, click here to read it!
To read more about Singapore's private tutoring community, visit us at Scholarly.sg.
