Do you need a homeschool tutor?
This question comes up in every home-ed conversation, usually with a twist of guilt attached. Do we need a tutor? Should we get one? Are we failing if we do?
The honest answer: it depends. A well-chosen tutor for the right subject at the right stage is one of the highest-return things you can buy in home education. A generalist tutor hired to cover a parent's discomfort with the whole KS4 curriculum is usually a waste of money. The trick is knowing which of those you're looking at.
This is the honest version, based on what tends to work and what tends not to. No sales pitch.
Signs you probably do need one
Some situations are clear. If any of these apply, tutoring is likely worth the money:
Your child is heading towards a GCSE or A-Level in a subject you don't feel confident teaching. Maths past KS3 is the classic example. Sciences at KS4 are another common one. So is a language you don't speak.
There's a specific skill or topic that's become a persistent block. Simultaneous equations for a Year 10 in the middle of the maths syllabus. Essay structure for a Year 11 doing English literature. Exam technique in the final six months before GCSEs. Targeted, time-limited tutoring here is very different from open-ended "weekly maths sessions".
Your child would benefit from a non-parent teaching relationship. This is real. Some children work better with an adult who isn't their parent. Teenagers especially. If you can feel yourself becoming the person who nags about maths, a tutor moves that dynamic somewhere else.
You need a UCAS reference. Home-educated students applying to university need a referee who knows them "in an academic or professional capacity" and isn't family. A tutor who's worked with your child for six to twelve months is one of the cleanest ways to solve this.
The best time to add tutoring for GCSE support is Year 10, not Year 11. Twelve months of steady work is more useful than six months of panic. Book earlier than feels necessary.
Signs you probably don't
Some situations, tutoring is not the right answer:
Your child is in KS1 or KS2 and just needs practice. Free resources – Oak National Academy, BBC Bitesize, Corbett Maths, library workbooks – cover primary content thoroughly. Adding a tutor for a seven-year-old is very rarely money well spent.
You're using a tutor as a substitute for teaching yourself the material. This is a common trap. If you're paying £40/hour for someone to explain fractions to your Year 6, and you don't sit in on any of the sessions, your child gets one hour of learning and you gain no ability to help them the other 168 hours of the week. Sitting in on sessions and learning alongside is often the higher-value move.
Your child hasn't tried working through the resource with you first. Struggling with something once isn't the same as needing a tutor. Struggling with the same thing across several attempts, with two different resources, might be.
You're using a tutor to compensate for a shaky curriculum plan. If the underlying issue is that you're not sure what your child should be learning this year, hiring a tutor won't fix it. The gap in the plan will just show up somewhere else. Sort the plan first.
The cost picture, plainly
Private tutoring in the UK typically runs £30–£60 per hour, with wide regional variation. London and the South East cluster at the top of the range; other parts of the country tend to sit at the lower end. Specialist tutors (Oxbridge maths, medical entrance exams, particular languages) go higher – £60–£100+ per hour is normal for that end of the market.
At one hour per week for a school year of about 40 weeks, that's roughly £1,200–£2,400 per subject per year at standard rates. Two subjects doubles that. This is real money, and for many families it's a bigger annual cost than exam entries. It's also a cost the DfE explicitly names as parental responsibility – there's no state funding for tutoring at home.
Group tutoring or small-group sessions run cheaper per family (£15–£30 per hour is typical) and can be a good middle ground. Some home-ed co-ops pool money to bring in a specialist for a subject nobody in the group wants to teach. This is often the cheapest way to buy proper subject expertise.
Online tutoring platforms are worth knowing about but vary widely in quality. The going rate on the mainstream platforms is £25–£45 per hour and the quality range is enormous. If you go that route, trial two or three tutors before committing.
Fees quoted here were typical at time of writing – tutor rates change and vary by region. Always ask for a rate up front and get a couple of quotes before committing to a term.
How to hire well
The tutors who tend to work well are the ones who:
Already know the specific exam board and syllabus. "GCSE maths" isn't specific enough. AQA GCSE Maths higher tier is. A tutor who's marked papers for that board is worth their rate.
Set homework and check it. If your child doesn't do work between sessions, tutoring is expensive company. Good tutors expect between-session work and follow up on it.
Have a clear plan. Ask before the first session: what's your approach for the first term? A tutor who can't answer that shouldn't be your choice.
Give you honest feedback. Not just "they're doing great". You want to know what's landing, what isn't, and what to do about the gaps.
Ask what your child thinks. Especially with teenagers. If your child dreads the sessions after four weeks, something's wrong – it might be the tutor, it might be the subject, but it's worth naming.
Where to find tutors
Local Facebook home-ed groups are the fastest route to word-of-mouth recommendations, and they're free. Other families in your area will already know who's good.
National platforms (MyTutor, Tutorful, Tutor House, Superprof) list vetted tutors with reviews and hourly rates. Quality varies. Try short trial sessions before committing to a term.
University noticeboards and student sites can be good for cheaper rates, especially in maths and sciences. Undergraduates aren't professional teachers but often teach the specific topic your child is stuck on well.
Your LA's Elective Home Education officer sometimes maintains a list. Ask.
One group worth considering carefully: retired or freelance teachers. They tend to charge full rate but bring years of syllabus knowledge and exam-marker experience. For a struggling Year 10, this can be worth every penny.
The middle ground: Structured self-study
One of the highest-value moves I see families skip is structured self-study on the right platforms. Before deciding you need a tutor, try:
Oak National Academy for structured lessons across KS3 and KS4. BBC Bitesize for exam-board-aligned content. Physics & Maths Tutor and Corbett Maths for topic-organised past papers.
Across KS3, GCSE, iGCSE, A-Level and IB – sciences, maths, English (language and literature), geography, history, religious studies, economics, modern languages and computer science – Cognito (cognito.org) has free video lessons and revision notes, plus quizzes, flashcards and exam questions (free with a weekly limit; Pro removes the cap). Building a habit of watching a lesson, quizzing on it, then attempting past-paper questions on the same topic is an effective study pattern – and often solves the block that made you consider a tutor in the first place. Quizlet and Anki are worth setting up early for flashcards.
If your child works through this pattern consistently for three or four weeks and is still stuck on something specific, that's when a tutor is worth the money. You've saved a term of tuition and pinpointed exactly what needs help.
