The UK tutoring industry is largely unregulated, with no legal requirements or formal qualifications needed to become a tutor. This means that anyone can set up as a tutor, which can be a risk for parents who are not receiving the right support for their children and also poses protection issues. Ofsted will conduct an independent review of tutoring in schools and 16 to 19 providers, following these terms of reference. Private tutoring is not limited to teaching schoolchildren; there are many tutors who specialize in teaching music, arts, business, marketing, computer coding and professional services. Individuals offer tuition services in a wide range of subjects, generally categorized into academic, musical, artistic and professional services.
There are no legal requirements for tutors to be evaluated by DBS, but it is worth trying to get one, especially if you plan to teach students under 18 years of age. All marketing materials used to advertise your tutoring service must be factually correct. Volunteers must be educated or studying to earn a degree and have a grade B or higher at Level A in the subject they wish to teach. This eliminates the work of the tutor and parents in researching the correct curriculum and eliminates the possibility of errors or potential liability that falls on you or your guardians for teaching the wrong content. The core of a successful tutoring business lies in the quality of your tutors and the success of your marketing efforts. Although most tutors tend to work part-time, many have made a career out of full-time mentoring and report income equivalent to that of teachers on an M6 salary scale: around £30,000 a year. The talk on industry regulation has been met with both support and rebuttal, and tutors expressed concern that tutoring agencies have the power to self-regulate.
A one-year course to become a tutor is too long and would lead to far fewer people working as tutors, which would be a shame for all those students currently assisted by both excellent, dedicated tutors who are not school teachers. You can then immediately recommend your tutors to clients with full knowledge that they are who they say they are, that they are qualified to teach in the relevant subjects, and that they are safe to be around their children. In short, you need to be very careful about how you store the personal data of clients and guardians, and have a data retention policy to delete the data of tutors and clients you haven't worked with for more than 12 months. This may provide a clue as to why the industry is not better regulated in the UK, because the black and white nature of the law in the UAE means that no one can help a child to any degree, which is unfair and impractical, and would lead to many guardians simply giving private lessons illegally if a similar law were imposed here. It has been mentioned that private tutors must have a degree in the chosen subjects in which they wish to be tutors.
