You’re not their teacher. You’re their consultant.

Key takeaways

• →A teacher is responsible for a class, a curriculum and a year. A tutor is hired by a family for a specific result.
• →Consultants agree the outcome first, diagnose before they prescribe, and leave the client stronger than they found them.
• →You don’t need a school’s authority. The family gave you yours when they chose you. Use it to ask for what the work needs.
• →Tutoring done well is one of the best-evidenced ways to raise attainment, so the stakes, and the expectations, are high.

1. Two different jobs

A classroom teacher is like an organisation’s in-house team. They look after thirty pupils at once, cover a whole curriculum, follow the school’s rules and are there all year. Their job is breadth and continuity.

A tutor is more like a consultant. A family brings you in, often for a set period, to solve a specific problem: a grade to lift, a topic that won’t click, an exam that is coming fast. Your job is depth and a result.

Neither job is better. But they need different habits. Teachers who become great tutors are usually the ones who notice the difference early.

2. What consultants do that tutors can borrow

Peter Block’s classic guide to consulting describes a consultant as someone with influence but no direct control: you can’t make the client change, so you have to agree clearly what each side wants and will do. He calls this “contracting”, and he argues most failed projects go wrong there, not in the expert work.^[1]

For a tutor that means three habits. Agree the outcome before you start. Diagnose before you teach. And plan your exit: the best consultants leave the client able to do more on their own.

3. Your authority is real

New tutors sometimes hold back: “I’m not their teacher, so I can’t insist on homework.” You can. The family chose you because you know how to get the result. Asking for twenty minutes of practice between lessons, a phone out of the room, or a mock paper by Friday is not overstepping. It is the job.

Being demanding works best when it is warm and specific. “I need you to do these five questions before Thursday so I can see where it breaks down” lands better than “Do more practice.”

A good tutor is kind to the student and demanding about the work. Both at once.

4. Why the stakes are high

Tutoring is one of the best-supported interventions in education. A review of 96 randomised trials found that tutoring produced large average gains in learning, with the biggest effects when the tutors were teachers or trained paraprofessionals.^[2]

The Sutton Trust’s review of what makes great teaching found the two strongest factors were deep subject knowledge, including knowing how students typically get things wrong, and the quality of instruction. Those are exactly what a family is paying a tutor for.^[3]

Try this: Before your next first lesson, write one sentence: “By the end of this block, this student will be able to…”. If you can’t finish the sentence, the family can’t either.

1. 1. What is the key difference between a teacher’s job and a tutor’s?

   Show answer

2. 2. What does Block call agreeing what each side wants and will do?

   Show answer

3. 3. Where does a tutor’s authority come from?

   Show answer

Your next steps

• Write your one-sentence outcome for each student you teach now.
• Pick one thing you’ve been reluctant to ask a student for, and ask for it this week.
• Read the next lesson on agreeing the outcome before your next first lesson.