Tutoring jobs are one of the best ways for students in secondary school or university to make some extra cash on the side. Whether it’s in term time or over the summer, tutoring is a rewarding and enjoyable form of employment.
There are always young students who are struggling in subjects that may come easily to you – such as maths, chemistry, or languages. Becoming a tutor can not only help you earn extra money, but you can also help others turn their grades from 59% to 99% within a matter of months. All thanks to you! In doing this, you’re also increasing your own knowledge and building up a bank of transferable skills such as communication and organisation.
What are the benefits of tutoring?
Apart from some extra cash on the side, becoming a tutor carries many extra benefits as a job.
- Skills: Being a tutor will help your CV to stand out from the crowd. Helping you harness skills such as time management, organisation, and patience, being a tutor will certainly help you stand out from the crowd in future job interviews.
- Flexible working hours: Be your own boss and choose your own hours. One of the major benefits of being a tutor is being able to manage your own timetable, allowing you to schedule work around other jobs, study, and free time.
- Pay: Tutoring is a traditionally very well paid job. How much you earn depends on your level, subject, and location but often tutors are looking at anything from £15 and above per hour. If you are a specialist in a niche subject or helping with entrance exam preparation, parents are often willing to pay much more.
What skills do I need to be a tutor?
While there is not a setlist of requirements to be a good tutor, there are personality traits, skills, and qualifications that help make the best tutors.
- Patience: One of the major skills needed to be a good tutor is patience with your pupils. Keep in mind that just because you understand something, that doesn’t mean your pupil will automatically grasp it straight away. Taking the time to explain something in dynamic and engaging ways and remaining positive, even when it is challenging is important to help your pupil build confidence and excel.
- Confidence: While you don’t need to be the loudest character, you do need to be confident in your abilities and expertise. You know your subject well, and you should convey a passion and interest for your content to your pupil.
- Organisation: Becoming a tutor is more than just teaching. You need to be able to balance tutoring around your schedule, plan lessons, and mark homework.
- Teaching qualification: While having a teaching qualification isn’t mandatory to make a great tutor, having a teaching certificate may set you apart from other tutors.
- Qualification in your subject choice: Having a qualification in the subject you are tutoring is important if you are teaching a niche subject. Showing you have this qualification, such as a GCSE, A-Level or Degree will help reassure your pupil that you are an expert in your field. If you are employed to help with homework help or school support, a specific qualification may not be as essential.
- Kindness: Being kind and positive with your pupil are essential qualities to help motivate your pupil and create an environment that fosters learning.
How to become a successful tutor:
To become a successful tutor, you first need to decide what subjects you will teach. Do you want to be a maths tutor? Or a music tutor? Or a chemistry tutor? If you’re having trouble deciding between a few, it’s possible to teach more than one topic – but make sure they’re subjects you truly excel at and could teach others. It’s also important to know which grade levels you want to be tutoring as well to make sure your knowledge is up to par. You don’t want to be known as the tutor that couldn’t answer a basic question!
Next, pick how much you will charge your pupils. What will your hourly rate be? Will you include a free-taster lesson? If you aren’t sure what to charge, look up tutoring rates in your area or take a look at our information on average tutoring rates and make a choice based on that.
Finally, you need to decide how you want to teach. Do you want to meet your pupil in person or tutor online from distance?
After working out these steps, you’ve already done half the battle!
Setting Up a Tutor Profile
Once you decide what subject you’re going to be tutoring, it’s time to start advertising your services. You can advertise in many different ways, depending on what you’re comfortable with. One of the best ways to become a tutor is by setting up your profile on a tutoring website that connects you with young students looking for a tutor and parents looking to hire tutors for their children – such as Yoopies. Through this method, you’ll earn great money and learn all the basics you need to become a successful tutor.
Word of mouth is a very effective way of getting your name out there. Let your friends and family know about your services, either in person or on various social media platforms. You can create flyers and post them around local bulletin boards with your rates. Another way is to post regularly on local Facebook groups and marketplaces, where a lot of parents are known to hang out. Link them to your profile on a tutoring website.
By focusing on word of mouth and making your tutoring services known, you’ll soon get your first pupil!
Ensuring Your Tutoring Profile Stands Out
If you choose to make a tutoring profile for parents to find, that’s great! You’ve accomplished so much already. Now you may be wondering how to make your profile stand out from all the rest. You might even feel insecure – how will they be convinced to choose you?
It’s simple!
In order to make your tutoring profile stand out from all the rest, be your most genuine self. Along with including your rates, hours, and subjects you teach, let the parents learn about who you are as a person. Tell them about what you do in your spare time, if you have any pets, or if you’re involved in volunteer or charity work. They want to know who they are hiring, beyond just your services. It’s important to establish a strong personal connection. If you aren’t sure what to include, ask your friends or family to list some interesting facts about you and write them on a piece of paper. Then, take what they’ve come up with and use it on your profile!
Just like that, you’ll have parents messaging you through the website, looking to get your help. All because you made yourself open and personable to them.
Making Sure You’re Fully Prepared
Before you get to the actual tutoring, meeting up with your pupil and their parents (if necessary) and seeing where the student is struggling most is a good first step to help you organise your first few lessons. What do they need from you? Which areas of your subject are they getting stuck on? From there, you’ll need to create a personalised plan to help your student better understand your subject area and achieve the highest possible grades for them.
After deciding the areas to focus on, you can decide your tutoring schedule. If you can, set up a regular schedule with your student (weekly or bi-weekly) so you can rely on having them as a consistent source of summer job money. At this stage, you could offer a referral discount to the client (20% off the next session, for example) if they refer you to another student. Once you have your first client, you can use them to expand your network and earn crazy good student cash!
It’s also a good idea to make yourself accessible to your tutoring clients, so they can ask you questions during off-hours. Provide your email address or phone number to them, so they can reach out to you as their source of knowledge in between sessions. This will create a great tutor-to-student rapport.
Ready to go!
So, to sum up, tutoring is a fantastic way to regularly make extra cash while helping a student with a subject you already excel at. It’s like you’re doing homework, but getting paid to do it! What’s better than that?
If you’re not the type to look after children but are more than willing to teach them in tutoring positions, becoming a tutor might be one of the best ways to earn money as a student looking for part-time or summer work.
Now you’re a fully-fledged tutor, have a look at our tips and tricks page to prepare for your first lesson!