Questions to ask before hiring a tutor: exam boards, qualifications and red flags

Hiring a tutor mostly comes down to a handful of direct questions asked before committing, but it's easy to focus only on subject knowledge and skip over some details that matter just as much for actually getting results.

Exam board fit is one of the most commonly overlooked but genuinely important questions for GCSE and A-level tuition specifically. England's major exam boards — AQA, Edexcel and OCR, alongside WJEC, used widely in Wales — set their own specifications, mark schemes and question styles for the same subject, and these differences are real enough to affect how a student should approach revision and exam technique, not just what content gets covered. A tutor who doesn't ask which exam board a student is actually sitting within the first few questions of a conversation is commonly seen as a warning sign — it suggests either inexperience with the exam system or an intention to teach generically rather than to the specific paper the student will face. A tutor with genuine, recent experience of a particular board, ideally including familiarity with actual past papers and mark schemes, brings a real advantage over one teaching the subject in the abstract.

Qualifications are worth asking about directly, and what's reasonable to expect scales with the level being taught. For primary support, a strong academic background combined with genuine experience working with children generally matters more than any specific degree. For GCSE tutoring, a relevant degree in the subject, or clearly equivalent professional experience, is a reasonable baseline to expect. For A-level, given the more specialised content, a subject degree at 2:1 or above, or qualified-teacher status with relevant experience, is commonly expected — a strong personal interest in a subject isn't quite the same as being able to teach it at the depth A-level demands.

Safeguarding deserves a direct, unembarrassed question rather than being left unasked. Requesting to see a DBS certificate is commonly described as non-negotiable for anyone who will be tutoring a child under 18, and a genuine, established tutor should have no hesitation showing one, or explaining clearly where they are in the process of obtaining one if they're newly self-employed.

Beyond qualifications and exam boards, it's worth asking practical questions about how sessions will actually run: availability and how consistently that fits the family's schedule, whether sessions happen in person or online and where, how progress will be communicated back to parents between sessions, and what the tutor's expectations are around contact or homework outside the lesson itself. These might seem like secondary details next to subject expertise, but mismatched expectations here are a common source of tuition arrangements quietly fizzling out within a few weeks.

Finally, asking for two references from current or recent families, particularly toward the end of a promising initial conversation, is a reasonable and commonly recommended step before committing — a tutor confident in their track record should be glad to provide them. Treating these questions as a normal, expected part of hiring, rather than something awkward to raise, tends to filter out weaker options quickly and gives real confidence in the tutor eventually chosen.

Frequently asked questions