Anyone paying for Key Stage 2 tutoring at present?

[So]

If so how available is it and what are you paying?

Mrs So is a qualified and experienced KS2 teacher and we are wondering whether she can start a viable business doing either home tutoring or remote learning in the current climate.

We are in the Midlands. I imagine that rates vary by region.

[Countdown]

My cousin was using KS2 tutors to prepare her kids for the 11+ and (IIRC) she was paying £30/hr [that was face to face]. That's in Lancashire.

I can't imagine home working being popular at the moment and, to be honest, there is an awful lot of good quality stuff on the Internet. When my kids did their 11+ there were a couple of websites that charges something like £30/year for English/Maths/Science which I signed them up to and they did fine.[Having said that my eldest provided some additional coaching for anything they were struggling with]

Edited by Countdown on Saturday 27th June 13:43

[So]

Countdown said:

My cousin was using KS2 tutors to prepare her kids for the 11+ and (IIRC) she was paying £30/hr [that was face to face]. That's in Lancashire.

I can't imagine home working being popular at the moment and, to be honest, there is an awful lot of good quality stuff on the Internet. When my kids did their 11+ there were a couple of websites that charges something like £30/year for English/Maths/Science which I signed them up to and they did fine.[Having said that my eldest provided some additional coaching for anything they were struggling with]

Edited by Countdown on Saturday 27th June 13:43

I am thinking it needs to be £30 to be viable. I don't think she would want to be travelling far though.

[Countdown]

So said:

I am thinking it needs to be £30 to be viable. I don't think she would want to be travelling far though.

The £30/hr was because she had a well-known reputation for getting her students through the 11+ (justified as well). Equally in our area there are entrepreneurial 6th formers offering tutoring for primary school kids for £10/hour.

Are there any selective entry schools in your area? There will be lots of parents wanting their child to have the best chance of passing the entrance exams.

[So]

Countdown said:

So said:

I am thinking it needs to be £30 to be viable. I don't think she would want to be travelling far though.

The £30/hr was because she had a well-known reputation for getting her students through the 11+ (justified as well). Equally in our area there are entrepreneurial 6th formers offering tutoring for primary school kids for £10/hour.

Are there any selective entry schools in your area? There will be lots of parents wanting their child to have the best chance of passing the entrance exams.

Yes, and she has done a lot of work for that school.

[quinny100]

I paid for a bit of tuition for my daughter last year for the 11+. The lady we used charged £20 an hour, but did it in groups of up to 4. This worked very well as it was really exam practice she needed, she’d take them for a 2 hour session and work through practice papers with them. If she identified additional support was required she offered that on a 1 - 1 or 2 - 1 basis if she had a couple of kids needing help with the same area. That was £35/hr 1-1 or £25 2-1. I don’t think she did many of those sessions, she only suggested one 2 - 1 session to us for some maths.

Some parents were sending their kids as soon as they started Year 5, we only started sending her about 3 months before the exam. It was money well spent as she passed!

[Jamie VTS]

I charged £20 for 45 mins of tutoring. Hope that helps.

[So]

Jamie VTS said:

I charged £20 for 45 mins of tutoring. Hope that helps.

Did they come to you Jamie?

[vaud]

I’m paying £25/hr for remote KS1 tuition at the moment.

[JeS10]

I’ve tutored for about 8 years. Started working through a well-known national franchise. Student was charged £29 for 1.5 hours. I had up to 5 at a time. First couple of years I was paid £40 per 1.5 hour session. This increased to £55 in my third year. I could do two sessions per night, four nights a week. It was a decent earner on the side, especially when I was on an NQT’s wage.

I switched to private tutoring because the big groups simply weren’t as effective and I was actually doing a lot of prep work and travel. Five years ago I charged £25 per hour. I would drive to their house - all were within about a 9 mile radius of me. I planned them across my week so I could minimise travel between consecutive evening sessions. I eventually increased my fee to what it is now, which is £35 per hour. I’m at the upper end of what anyone is willing to pay around my part of the country. I could probably ask for £40 per hour if someone was desperate and it was a few months before exams. Currently I’ve dropped my fee to £30 for remote sessions as I don’t have fuel costs. I could do anywhere between 8 and 12 sessions a week. It’s hardly an insignificant amount of money that I was making when I was booked out. I had most business through word-of-mouth and a 100% pass rate across all levels.

Now I’m in the 40% bracket with my day job it isn’t as viable to tutor quite so much. The payments on account were also a shock in my first year because I was a complete idiot. Anyway, I’m scaling back and spending more time at home. It’s also difficult to continue to offering tutoring services whilst espousing the social equality and mobility mantra in my day job (working in a very deprived school).

Oh, a good earner for me used to be entrance exams for independent schools. It’s a difficult niche though and a proven track record is important but the fee can often be substantial.

[So]

JeS10 said:

I’ve tutored for about 8 years. Started working through a well-known national franchise. Student was charged £29 for 1.5 hours. I had up to 5 at a time. First couple of years I was paid £40 per 1.5 hour session. This increased to £55 in my third year. I could do two sessions per night, four nights a week. It was a decent earner on the side, especially when I was on an NQT’s wage.

I switched to private tutoring because the big groups simply weren’t as effective and I was actually doing a lot of prep work and travel. Five years ago I charged £25 per hour. I would drive to their house - all were within about a 9 mile radius of me. I planned them across my week so I could minimise travel between consecutive evening sessions. I eventually increased my fee to what it is now, which is £35 per hour. I’m at the upper end of what anyone is willing to pay around my part of the country. I could probably ask for £40 per hour if someone was desperate and it was a few months before exams. Currently I’ve dropped my fee to £30 for remote sessions as I don’t have fuel costs. I could do anywhere between 8 and 12 sessions a week. It’s hardly an insignificant amount of money that I was making when I was booked out. I had most business through word-of-mouth and a 100% pass rate across all levels.

Now I’m in the 40% bracket with my day job it isn’t as viable to tutor quite so much. The payments on account were also a shock in my first year because I was a complete idiot. Anyway, I’m scaling back and spending more time at home. It’s also difficult to continue to offering tutoring services whilst espousing the social equality and mobility mantra in my day job (working in a very deprived school).

Oh, a good earner for me used to be entrance exams for independent schools. It’s a difficult niche though and a proven track record is important but the fee can often be substantial.

Thanks for this.

It seems to me that if you're travelling 9 miles to earn £40 for an hour "on site" that isn't a very good rate of pay.

I wonder whether Mrs So needs to reconsider.

[MYOB]

I pay £15 for an hour of tuition in a group of 4, for the Kent Test.

she charges £30 an hour for 1-2-1.

[JeS10]

So said:

Thanks for this.

It seems to me that if you're travelling 9 miles to earn £40 for an hour "on site" that isn't a very good rate of pay.

I wonder whether Mrs So needs to reconsider.

The travel is definitely the down side. If you're happy having the sessions at your home then that's obviously much easier! It would never work for me though with having a young (noisy) family. It's also an inconvenience that most clients could do without. Remote sessions - despite what I'd like to believe - simply aren't as effective and they tend not to be sustained by the client. It's a lot easier for them to cancel or start to become sporadic with someone that they only ever see on a computer screen.

However, I should maybe clarify that if you're doing three sessions in one night with each house being within a few miles of each other then it makes a lot more sense. I would be able to clear £100 per night if I managed to have all of the sessions in the same small area. Invariably it starts to break down when sessions gets cancelled, the student can no longer make them on that day etc. Nonetheless, to achieve this, I would suggest trying to set up different geographic areas for different days and if the client can't do that then you should just wait for one that can. Stupidly, my travel was sometimes prohibitive but it was down to my poor planning and maybe not always being assertive enough. Also, I kept the same families for years. I ended up tutoring at some houses for about five years. Quite odd now I think about it!

[So]

JeS10 said:

So said:

Thanks for this.

It seems to me that if you're travelling 9 miles to earn £40 for an hour "on site" that isn't a very good rate of pay.

I wonder whether Mrs So needs to reconsider.

The travel is definitely the down side. If you're happy having the sessions at your home then that's obviously much easier! It would never work for me though with having a young (noisy) family. It's also an inconvenience that most clients could do without. Remote sessions - despite what I'd like to believe - simply aren't as effective and they tend not to be sustained by the client. It's a lot easier for them to cancel or start to become sporadic with someone that they only ever see on a computer screen.

However, I should maybe clarify that if you're doing three sessions in one night with each house being within a few miles of each other then it makes a lot more sense. I would be able to clear £100 per night if I managed to have all of the sessions in the same small area. Invariably it starts to break down when sessions gets cancelled, the student can no longer make them on that day etc. Nonetheless, to achieve this, I would suggest trying to set up different geographic areas for different days and if the client can't do that then you should just wait for one that can. Stupidly, my travel was sometimes prohibitive but it was down to my poor planning and maybe not always being assertive enough. Also, I kept the same families for years. I ended up tutoring at some houses for about five years. Quite odd now I think about it!

Thank you got the insight.