How common it is
Sutton Trust polling puts the proportion of secondary pupils in England and Wales who have had private tutoring at some point at 29 per cent. The distribution is uneven:
- London, 45 per cent — against 27 per cent in the rest of England and 24 per cent in Wales.
- Urban 33 per cent, rural 19 per cent.
- By household, 23 per cent among the worst-off compared with 30 per cent among the best-off.
It has also grown. The figure was 18 per cent when the research began about twenty years ago, and 27 per cent in 2019.
Those numbers matter for a reason beyond curiosity. Where nearly half a cohort has had paid tuition, its absence becomes a disadvantage rather than its presence being an advantage — which is an uncomfortable fact about how the system now works, and a reason not to feel sheepish about considering it.
What the evidence says
The Education Endowment Foundation rates one-to-one tuition at +5 months of additional progress, at moderate cost, on moderate evidence strength drawn from 123 studies. The evidence rating was reduced deliberately, because many of those studies were not independently evaluated and the results varied widely — so the figure is a reasonable central estimate rather than a promise.
Where it works hardest:
- Primary rather than secondary — around +6 months against +4.
- Literacy rather than maths — around +6 months against +2. That gap is large and is the single most surprising finding in the area, given that maths is what most parents buy.
- Children who are behind. Pupils eligible for free school meals and low attainers are particularly likely to benefit, which is to say tuition closes gaps more reliably than it extends leads.
The arrangement that works
This is the part worth acting on, and it is not how private tuition is typically delivered.
Short and frequent beats long and weekly. Sessions of around thirty minutes, three to five times a week, over a block of up to ten weeks, show the greatest impact. The familiar model — an hour once a week, continuing indefinitely — is close to the least effective shape the same money can buy.
It has to connect to what the school is doing. Tuition works best when it is additional to normal lessons but explicitly linked with them. A tutor who does not know what the class is covering, which exam board is being followed or where the child's actual difficulty lies is re-teaching at random.
Who teaches matters. Experienced teachers with specific training produce the largest effects. Programmes led by volunteers, or by teaching assistants without training, are less effective — though a well-trained, well-supported teaching assistant following a structured programme does well, and costs less.
Small groups are worth trying first. One-to-one has larger average effects, but groups of two or three sometimes match or beat it, and the comparisons are mixed. The reasonable conclusion from the evidence is that the quality of the teaching matters more than the group size, which makes a small group the sensible thing to test before paying for individual sessions.
The regulation gap
There is no regulation of private tutoring in the UK. No qualification is required, there is no register, and nobody inspects it. Anyone may advertise as a tutor tomorrow.
Checks are the part most often misunderstood. A self-employed tutor cannot obtain an enhanced DBS check on their own behalf — enhanced checks are applied for through an employer or an agency. So an independent tutor may hold a basic check, or an enhanced one issued for a previous teaching post that may be years old. The useful questions are what check they hold, who requested it, and when. Agencies can and generally do obtain enhanced checks, which is a substantial part of what the higher fee pays for, and it is fair to ask an agency precisely what it verifies.
Beyond paperwork, the arrangement worth thinking about is one-to-one contact with no other adult aware of it — a tutor alone with a child in a house, or an online session behind a closed door. Keeping sessions in a shared room, with the door open, or with the online call visible, is not suspicion of anybody. It is the ordinary arrangement that makes the question moot.
Choosing one
- Subject and level, not just subject. A maths graduate is not automatically a GCSE maths tutor. The exam board and the specification matter, and a tutor who does not ask which one is being followed has given away rather a lot.
- Ask how the difficulty will be identified. A tutor who cannot say, after two or three sessions, what the specific gap is — rather than that the child "needs more practice" — is not diagnosing anything.
- Ask what happens between sessions. Thirty minutes three times a week works partly because of what sits in the gaps.
- Buy a block, not a term. A short trial with an agreed point to review costs little and settles the question.
- Watch for tuition becoming permanent. The object is a child who no longer needs it. Open-ended arrangements that quietly continue for years are a business model rather than an intervention.
When it is not the answer
Ask the school first. Many schools run their own catch-up and intervention groups at no cost, they know precisely where the gap is, and they are the ones who will be assessing the work. It is a free first move that a surprising number of parents skip.
Where the obstacle is special educational needs that are not being met, paid tuition is treating a symptom while leaving the school's duty unaddressed. That is a case for the school's SEN co-ordinator and, if necessary, the local authority's SENDIASS service.
Where the real difficulty is anxiety rather than knowledge, more academic work in the evening is likely to make things worse rather than better.
Where the week is already full. The research measures academic progress and not what was given up to get it. A child with no unstructured time is paying for the tuition in a currency the studies do not count.
Entrance exam coaching is a different proposition from catch-up tuition, and the questions are different too: whether the child wants it, how much of their childhood it occupies, and what the plan is if the place does not come.
Online or in person
Online tuition is cheaper, offers a far wider choice of specialist tutors regardless of where a family lives, and removes travel. It suits older children and anyone reasonably self-directed.
In person tends to suit younger children and anyone who needs help staying on task, where physical presence does some of the work.
The evidence does not strongly favour either, which means the medium matters less than the things above — the length and frequency of sessions, the link to school work, and who is doing the teaching.
Judging whether a school's results justify its reputation is a related and much-misread subject, covered under school results.