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Private tuition is now an ordinary part of school life in India. In the government's Comprehensive Modular Survey: Education, 2025, 27.0% of students were taking or had taken private coaching during the current academic year, and 30.7% in urban areas.
Marks, degrees and word of mouth tell you what a tutor knows, not how they teach. A single trial session, watched with a checklist, tells you far more.
What does good tuition actually look like?
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), an independent UK charity that helps schools use research evidence, sums it up in its guide Making a difference with effective tutoring. If tuition is high quality and aligned with classroom teaching, pupils can make up to five months of additional progress with one-to-one tuition.
The same guide says tuition works best when it is targeted at a pupil's specific needs, using ongoing checks such as quizzing and questioning, plus timely feedback. Its evidence review finds that frequent sessions (about three times a week, up to an hour each) over six to twelve weeks typically show the greatest impact. That evidence comes from school tutoring in England, so treat the schedule as a guide. The practical point: a good tutor diagnoses first and teaches second.
What should you watch for in a trial session?
Sit nearby for the trial and tick what you see.
Watch how the tutor explains:
They start by asking what your child is doing in school this week and what feels hard.
They explain one idea at a time, with an example from the child's own textbook or homework.
They check that the explanation landed before moving on, not just "Samjha?" followed by a nod.
Watch how the tutor asks questions:
They ask "why" and "what would happen if" questions, not only "what is the answer".
They wait for your child to think, even through an awkward silence.
Your child asks questions too. In a classic 1994 study of tutoring college students and 7th graders, Arthur Graesser and Natalie Person found students asked questions about 240 times as often in tutoring as in classrooms. One-to-one time is the place where your child should feel safe to say "I don't get it".
Watch how the tutor gives practice:
Your child holds the pen for most of the session.
The tutor sets a problem, lets your child attempt it, then gives feedback on the attempt.
Near the end, your child tries a question from memory without notes.
That last step matters. Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke found that taking a recall test produced better retention after two days and a week than restudying the same material, even though restudying made students feel more confident.
What are the red flags in a home tutor?
Doing homework for your child. Neat, complete homework feels like progress. The Roediger and Karpicke finding is a warning here: feeling confident after watching an answer is not the same as being able to produce it in an exam.
Talking for most of the session with almost no questions.
No interest in what the school is teaching or what the last test showed.
Promising marks without first finding out where your child is.
Getting annoyed when your child says they are confused.
If you're unsure where help ends and doing it for them begins, our guide on when to help with homework and when to step back draws the line. The same logic applies to AI tools, covered in should children use ChatGPT for homework.
What should you ask the tutor after the trial?
Five friendly questions are enough:
"What did you notice about where my child is right now?"
"What will you work on in the first month, and why?"
"How will you check that it is sticking?"
"What will you do when homework is due and my child is stuck?"
"How will you tell us how things are going?"
A good answer to question 4 sounds like "I'll give a hint and a similar example, and they will finish it." A worrying one is "I'll make sure it's done."
Then ask your child, alone: "Did you feel okay saying you were stuck?"
How do you know it is working after a month?
Week 1: write down two topics your child finds hard.
Week 2: ask your child to explain one of them to you in their own words.
Week 3: look at school work on those topics. Is it their own reasoning?
Week 4: ask the tutor what has improved and what comes next.
If the answers are vague after a month, it is fair to talk it through or switch. The same before-you-pay questions work for a bigger centre, too; see how to evaluate a coaching institute.
Between sessions, if your child keeps using the wrong method on a problem, the Fermi Problem Library has a step-by-step solver that explains the reasoning rather than printing an answer, so they can see why each step follows.
