Most parents ask two questions before hiring a tutor: what do you charge, and are you free on Tuesdays.
Then they hand over their child and hope.
The first conversation is the only real leverage you have. Once lessons start, you are weeks and several hundred dollars into finding out whether this was a good idea. Twenty minutes of decent questions up front saves all of that.
Here are the ones worth asking, what good answers sound like, and the replies that should make you pause.
Before you ask anything
Work out what you are actually hiring for. Saying your child needs help with Maths is not a brief. These are different problems and they need different tutors:
- A specific topic gap, for example fractions or organic chemistry
- A foundation that was never properly built
- Good understanding but marks lost on exam technique
- Lost confidence or motivation
- Pace, because school moves faster than your child does
If you cannot name which one it is, say so honestly. A good tutor will help you work it out. A weak one will just agree with whatever you suggest.
About their experience
1. How long have you been tutoring, and is this full-time or alongside something else? Not a trick question. It tells you what kind of tutor you are dealing with and how reliable their schedule is likely to be.
2. What are your qualifications, and can you show me? Ask to see them. A tutor with real credentials will produce them without fuss. Hesitation here is the answer.
3. How many students have you taught at my child's exact level? Level-specific experience matters more than total years. Someone with six years of teaching lower primary is not experienced at O-Level.
4. Have you taught this syllabus recently? Syllabuses change. A tutor who last taught the level five years ago may be working from an outdated version.
5. What happened with your last few students at this level? Listen for specifics. Saying they improved is nothing. Saying one went from a C to a B in about four months while another plateaued because he would not do the homework is a real answer from someone paying attention.
About their approach
6. How do you find out what a student does not understand? The best answer involves diagnosis rather than assumption. Watch out for anyone who plans to launch straight into worksheets.
7. What does a typical lesson look like? You are listening for structure. A tutor who cannot describe their own lesson probably does not have one.
8. Do you set homework, and how much? There is no correct amount. There is a correct answer for your child, and a tutor who has thought about it.
9. What do you do when a student is stuck? Good tutors talk about questioning, working backwards, and building up from what the student does know. Weaker ones talk about explaining it again, louder.
10. How do you handle a child who has given up on the subject? If motivation is your real problem, this is your most important question.
About your child specifically
11. Based on what I have told you, what do you think is going on? The single most revealing question on this list. A tutor who offers a thoughtful hypothesis is thinking. One who says it is no problem and they can help is selling.
12. What would you focus on in the first month? You want a plan, not a promise. Vagueness now becomes drifting later.
13. How will we know if this is working? Push for something concrete. School results are a slow signal. Ask what they will notice before that.
14. What would make you say this is not a good fit? A tutor willing to describe the students they cannot help is far more trustworthy than one who claims to suit everyone.
About the practical side
15. What is your rate, and does it change by level or subject? Get it clearly, in writing, before the first lesson.
16. What is your cancellation and rescheduling policy? Both ways. Yours and theirs.
17. How much notice do you need if we stop? Agree the exit before you agree the start.
18. How often will you update me, and how? Set this now. The most common tuition complaint from parents is not poor teaching. It is silence.
The two that reveal the most
19. What do you need from me as a parent? A tutor who has an answer has done this properly. Common good ones: a quiet space, no phone during lessons, backing them up on homework, telling them early when something at school changes.
20. Can we do a trial lesson, and what will you cover in it? Most tutors will agree. The second half of the question is the real one. A tutor who has planned the trial is a tutor who plans.
Answers that should make you pause
- Guarantees. Nobody can promise a grade. A tutor who does is either inexperienced or dishonest.
- Vagueness about credentials. Promising to send them later too often means never.
- No questions for you. A tutor genuinely interested in helping your child will want to know about them.
- Instant agreement with everything. If they never push back on your read of the situation, they are either not thinking or not willing to say so.
- Pressure. Claiming another parent is interested and they need to know today is a sales tactic, not a scheduling constraint.
- Dismissing your child's difficulty. Saying it is easy and he just needs more practice ignores the possibility that something is genuinely blocked.
Be ready to answer some too
The good tutors will interview you back. Have this ready:
- Your child's most recent results, and roughly where things started slipping
- What has already been tried
- How your child responds to being pushed
- What you are actually hoping for, honestly. A pass, a distinction, or simply that your child stops dreading the subject
The uncomfortable truth about interviews
Here is what twenty questions cannot do.
An interview tells you what a person says about themselves. Confident, articulate people interview well, and that is not the same as teaching well. Meanwhile a quieter tutor who is excellent with children can come across flat over a phone call and get passed over.
Notice how many of the questions above exist only because nothing has been checked. Show me your certificates. How long have you really been doing this. What happened with your last students. You are doing verification work that should have been done before this person ever reached you.
That is the part we think is broken, and it is what we are building TutorMeet to fix. Identity and qualifications verified through SingPass, a track record built from what actually happened with previous students, not from what a tutor remembers to mention. And a transparent, trackable view of a tutor so you know exactly what you are paying for.
Which frees the conversation up to be about the thing it should be about: whether this person is right for your child.
Ask the questions anyway. Just do it knowing the facts are already settled.
We are in closed beta now, with a waitlist open to parents and tutors. Join the waitlist at tutormeet.app
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