HSC English Tutoring? Here's my advice! (1 Viewer)

[QuiteLiterate]

Hi everyone!

My name is Bec, and I have over ten years of experience as a state-ranking/prize-winning English tutor and teacher. I've started a new Substack/blog where I muse about English teaching/tutoring, education, and the tutoring industry. I thought I'd share a little bit from my first blog post here in case it helps anyone in their search for English tutoring! If you have any questions or would like any advice/a link to my blog, please PM me and I'd be very happy to help out.

Today, I’ll be exploring a question that I have been asked on countless occasions by students, guardians, and even teachers.

The Questions

1. How do I go about finding the right tutoring company?
2. What should I look out for and keep in mind?
3. What do I need to know as I enter this overwhelming market?

The tutoring industry is varied, and optionality is immense in Sydney. The options are seemingly endless, and the search for the right company can be overwhelming. Today’s post will focus only on tutoring companies, not private tutors. The approach to selecting a private tutor will be explored in a separate post.

To begin, some basic context.

• First, tutoring is a regulated industry; HOWEVER, the quality of tutoring services and the claims made by various tutoring companies generally go unchecked.
• Second, tutoring companies are businesses. They have to try to turn a profit or at least breakeven. They are engaging in sales and marketing strategies!
• Third, quality absolutely varies. Not only across the different companies, but also within a single tutoring company.
  There can be just two amazing tutors and dozens of very average tutors within a single company. Every tutoring company has taught students who have benefited from their services and considered them to be of great value AND students who have regretted enrolling and viewed the services as a waste of money.
• Fourth, tutoring is not a substitute for (and will not make up for) a lack of independent effort and engagement with school work and tasks.
  Tutoring is not necessary for a student to achieve their personal best and succeed. You should do everything within your power to improve independently before opting for English tutoring. Arrange a time to respectfully ask your head teacher or English teacher for support if you are a student who doesn’t even know where to start. Tell them that you know you’ve slacked off and that you want to start taking it seriously and want to ask them for advice on what you must do and change to improve. Tutoring should be viewed as a TOOL, and its effectiveness will be maximised only if used in addition to your independent work ethic and engagement at school.
• Fifth, tutoring companies are not schools, and they cater to the instrumental view of learning for tangible, quantifiable results.
  That is how effectiveness is determined in the realm of tutoring for the vast majority of students/guardians. Teachers know that schooling and education serve far greater, varied purposes, but for this post, and given the volume of guardians who pay for tutoring, I will assume that an interested reader is interested in seeking results-effective tutoring.

Key Advice 1: Know the answers to these four questions before you start looking.

1. What do you want to get out of English tutoring?
2. Why do you need it/what results do you want to achieve?
3. What do you need? Group lectures, seminars with discussion, individualised attention, small classes with discussion and individual assistance, and marking, etc. Think carefully about what would actually benefit you in addition to what you already access at school.
4. Have you already done everything to try to improve independently? You should read your syllabus and texts, develop a strong, respectful relationship with your teacher, complete homework tasks and write practice responses for feedback, actively participate during school classes, and genuinely try to reflect on your learning and feedback and apply what you learn at school. If you aren’t even doing the bare minimum, it’s difficult to accurately assess whether or not you’ll need or benefit from additional tutoring.

The answers to these questions will determine the best option for you. Before looking for a tutor, you need to know what you want to get out of English tutoring. This is to avoid a situation where you unthinkingly buy into what the tutoring company tells you that you need. For example:

• Are you a student who is looking for a 99+ ATAR and 94+ in English?
• Are you already likely to achieve a low Band 6, and looking to increase the chances of a mid-high Band 6?
• Do you already work very hard in relation to English? Or are you a student who lacks discipline, motivation, and structure?
• Or, are you a student who is less concerned about the ATAR and more focused on a Band 6 in English?
• Or, are you a student who doesn’t care too much about a Band 6? You are really struggling and just want literacy support—someone to help you with homework and assignments and to help you understand your texts.

This is really important, because any teacher and effective tutor can tell you that the approach to take with students who are going from a 94 to a 97 is radically different from the pedagogy and skills required to get a student from 83 to 90, or 60 to 75, or 75 to 94.

Some tutoring companies might be very experienced in taking students who are high achievers (likely to have already achieved a Band 6 independently) and pushing them to a mid-Band 6, but they may work very poorly with a student who needs serious literacy intervention, and vice versa.

Then, there’s a second tier of consideration. Aside from the results and marks you’d like to achieve, there are important cultural and pedagogical factors you need to consider.

• Are you looking for someone to motivate and inspire you? Or is this not important?
• Are you looking for someone who will provide you with structure and set clear tasks and deadlines? Or are you self-motivated?
• What kind of marking and feedback do you want? The quality of marking varies greatly across and within tutoring companies.
• How much do you value administrative support and flexibility? This generally reflects the culture of a tutoring company as a business.

This second tier is fundamentally determined by the culture of the tutoring company and can only be assessed by speaking with staff directly. Speak to their administrative staff on the phone and ask them specific questions about English. Go into the centre when it’s busiest. Observe the classes. Do students look engaged? How much discussion or questioning is taking place? Observe the individual lessons or tutors. Do they appear to be enthusiastic and warm? Observe the sample resources. Are they aligned in tone and content for the academic rigour you need?

Key Advice 2: Don’t buy into company marketing and what companies write on their websites.

Websites are useful to assess the offerings, identity, tone, and image they want to advertise. However, the most effective and efficient way to gauge the quality of a tutoring company is to speak to the staff directly and to speak to students who are enrolled there.

To do this, you need to ask unconventional, unexpected questions—questions that are highly specific to your struggles with English—and assess the competence and subject-specific knowledge of staff. For example:

• ‘I’m really struggling with understanding how to differentiate between Keats’ poems in Module A because the themes overlap. What kind of advice would your tutors recommend?’ Assess whether their response is generic, salesy, genuinely academic and insightful, or so on and so forth.
• ‘I’m a student who has performed really poorly in Year 11 despite achieving so highly in Years 7-10; why do you think this is the case? Do you think I can improve in time for Year 12?’ Look for how they frame their response to this question. Are they trying to encourage you to pay up and enrol, or are they invested in giving you helpful advice?
• You could share with them the teacher feedback/comment from your most recent Module A essay and ask, ‘I’m struggling to understand and interpret the teacher’s feedback here. How would [the company] interpret this advice and convert it to an explicit recommendation?’
• When you’re assessing the vibes through a student who attends a tutoring company, make sure you speak to someone who’s in a similar boat to you—someone who has a similar need for support. If you’re a student who is looking to go from a 94 to a 97, there’s no use speaking to someone who is improving from a 85 to 90, or a 65 to an 80, and so on and so forth.

 

[QuiteLiterate]

Key Advice 3: Do they publish their ‘amazing’ student results? Approach this information critically.
As I said earlier, tutoring companies are ultimately businesses, and they have a bottom line. That in and of itself mightn’t necessarily be a problem depending on your views (there’s a lot more we could unpack here). But for today, it’s best to understand that every tutoring company is going to advertise how amazing their students’ results are.

They may include testimonials or make claims about the percentage of students who achieved a band 6, the number of students who achieved a band 6, the average ATAR achieved by their students, the number of state ranks achieved, and so on and so forth. They do this because they know that students and guardians like the numbers. The numbers make them feel safe. It’s a very strange situation.

The problem
The problem here is that this kind of data is generally unreliable because it's opaque; it's unverified. When was the data collected? How was the data collected? What was the sample size? How do we know that the data is accurate? For example, a lot of companies may publish results that are actually based only on the scores that were submitted by students who were forthcoming about their HSC performance, or they may cherry pick which students to solicit for results. And in reality, what kind of student tends to be forthcoming about their results? A high achiever, a student who has achieved highly and who is proud of their results.

Second, the effectiveness of a teacher or a tutor is not defined by the final results or scores of their students, despite how counterintuitive this seems to many students and guardians. Instead, the most accurate gauge is how their students feel as learners, and their value-added data—how much their students actually improved. So, if there’s a tutoring company that generally accepts students who are high achievers and who attend schools where over a hundred students get a Band 6 in English and score ATARs above 99 every single year, then it’s difficult to truly assess how much the tutoring contributed to these final results. Whereas, for example, supporting a student to go from an expected HSC mark of 75 to 94 more clearly demonstrates effectiveness.

Key Advice 4: Minimum credentials/requirements and ‘State Ranks’.
Tutor credentials and HSC results are a sound prerequisite but do not guarantee effectiveness or quality of tutoring. Tutoring credentials can inflate demand and prices. Demand unfortunately and nonsensically does not always necessarily reflect actual quality/effectiveness when it comes to tutoring companies. Generally speaking, if you're looking for a greater chance of results-effective tutoring:

• At minimum, the tutor should have achieved a 94+ HSC mark, and ideally, should have studied your texts OR taught students who studied your texts and went on to achieve a Band 6. A 90 HSC mark may roughly translate to a raw mark anywhere between 79-85/100 in the HSC exam. This means that a ‘Band 6 tutor’ (a term often used) could have achieved B-range results in all sections of the HSC exam.
• Recommended ATAR of 95 and above; this means that they have a generally sound understanding of the necessary practical exam technique and success strategies for HSC examinations and preparation broadly.
• Even better if the tutor studies and achieves highly in English Literature at university, or achieved E4s in HSC English Extension I and English Extension II. This generally reflects a genuine passion, interest, talent, and skill in the literary domain.
• A state rank in English does not guarantee effective tutoring.

It’s great if a tutor has achieved a state rank (the term used to refer to those who were published as the top 10 or 20 achievers in the state for a particular subject), but keep in mind that not all state ranks are equal.

• I achieved a state rank in English, many of my friends have achieved a state rank, and I’ve hired and trained dozens of state-ranking tutors. Many of my friends who achieved a state rank in English openly admit that they’d struggle to teach anyone else to do the same. Many can offer high quality services only in relation to the prescribed texts that they studied, others may lack the skills, dedication, and competencies required for effective teaching.
• All people who have achieved a state rank certainly have above-average literacy and work ethic. You’d be surprised, but only very few achieve a state rank each year because of genuine passion, skill, and talent in the domain of English Literature.
• Many state rank because they got lucky–they had the right tutor, they accessed the essays of other state rankers and tailored these just enough to get away with their responses internally, they memorised the right essays for perfectly suited questions, and they nailed the HSC exam as a system to be gamed. That’s not to say that they aren’t highly intelligent and skilled as learners!

 

[QuiteLiterate]

Key Advice 5: Understand the market.
Understand the differences between the different companies. While anomalies do exist, there are general pros and cons to the various types of tutoring companies.

• For any company, assess the key staff member who is in charge of designing the company’s English services and offerings and overseeing quality (think: their ‘head teacher’ of the English course). What are their credentials and qualifications? How many years of experience do they have under their belt?
• For any company, assess the size of group classes and how many students each tutor is allocated.
• For any company, assess the quality and flexibility of their administrative services. Do they treat students/guardians in a kind and helpful manner when concerns are raised? Do they try to offer individualised advice and assistance when students or guardians need help or further information? How do they respond to students who don’t improve with the tutoring services?
• For any company, test the tone and vibes. What are their values? What do they seem to care about and prioritise? Do the staff seem happy? Are they friendly? Are they professional?

Mass-market company:
For the purposes of today’s discussion, I view mass-market companies as those that have multiple branches and teach multiple subjects for a high volume of enrolments. Mass-market companies are generally high-medium affordability (if they manage their costs efficiently!) because they have a higher volume of enrolments, low to mid-tier teaching rates for a higher volume of staff with greater tolerance for staff turnover, standardised internal protocols, and standardised/replicable service offerings.

Cons/Pros

• The greater the chance of increased bureaucracy and standardisation.
• Increased risk of generic services and lowered capacity for the intimate understanding and tracking of each individual student and their progress.
• Often have large, long classes that consist of copying notes off a board with little discussion and tailored assistance.
• Useful for students who just want a run-of-the-mill tutoring service that provides extra resources, structure, and infrequent feedback on assessment tasks.
• Greater optionality and diversity in their services and offerings.
• With standardisation and institutionalisation comes greater predictability and consistency in the quality of their services (whether that be poor or high quality), because there will be stricter, standardised training procedures and increased accountability and regulatory measures in place at these companies.
• Likely less useful for students who need rigorous, individual support and literacy intervention.
• Likely less useful for students who want to achieve 95+.

Boutique company:
For the purposes of today’s discussion, I view boutique companies as those that have only one centre. They are generally more specialised, focusing only on English or very few subjects, with fewer enrolments. These centres are generally of low affordability and are expensive because they have a lower capacity for student enrolments, a mid-high teaching rate for fewer staff that they need to retain, and may advertise premium, highly individualised offerings.

Cons/Pros

• Greater likelihood of higher-quality services that are individualised.
• Greater likelihood of staff with specialised skills and knowledge. Their livelihood depends on the quality of a single subject, and high-quality offerings demand significant payment of rarer, high-quality staff.
• Greater track record of teaching students who are high achievers.
• Useful for students who are already high-achieving and disciplined but want to guarantee a Band 6
• Limited optionality with their offerings.
• Limited administrative flexibility.
• Likely to be far more expensive than centres that teach multiple subjects on a larger scale.
• The actual value and benefit of their higher-quality academic services, when compared to a highly effective private tutor, isn’t guaranteed to be significant, especially when considering the increased costs of enrolling with a company rather than a private tutor.
• Less likely to be of high usefulness to students who are not already high achievers.

Emerging company:
For the purposes of today’s discussion, I’ll view emerging companies as those that run remotely or with only one centre and do not have a fully established brand, marketing, and/or established presence in the market. These are usually the small companies that run entirely on word-of-mouth. They can teach one or many subjects, and they’re generally much more affordable because they don’t have high operating costs, marketing fees, etc.

Cons/Pros:

• The greater the chance of flexible, tailored, and individualised services.
• There’s greater scope and viability to understand and respond to each student’s needs.
• Greater chance of small class sizes with increased active discussion and participation based on the students in attendance.
• Greater chance of usefulness for students who are struggling and require rigorous, individual support.
• There will generally be limited optionality with their offerings.
• Greater volatility/variability in the quality of their services depending on which teacher/tutor you are allocated because staff will be given greater autonomy to do what they think is best for each student/class.

Disclaimer: remember, there are always anomalies, and there are excellent and average tutors at every company. Every tutoring company has engaged with students who have enjoyed and disliked the services.

The advice in the above posts is based on my opinion, and any claims made are general and have not been written with particular tutoring companies in mind. As stated, every tutoring company has pros and cons, and has taught students who have benefited from and disliked their services. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. The advice is being offered to empower students/guardians to understand the tutoring industry, not promote or denounce particular tutoring companies.