How to choose an A-Level Maths tutor: 8 questions parents should ask

Anyone in the UK can call themselves a maths tutor by this afternoon — no qualification, no register, no vetting beyond what you do yourself. So the short answer is: choose on evidence, not on rapport. Warmth is the easiest thing in the world to project for an introductory call, parents consistently over-weight it, and it tells you almost nothing about whether a grade will move. The eight questions below are the ones I'd ask in your position, with what a good answer sounds like and where I'd walk away. I sit on the receiving end of this interview most weeks, and I'll say it plainly: the families who ask questions like these are the ones serious tutors take most seriously.

1. "Can you show me evidence of your results?"

Not "do you get results" — show me. Anyone can claim a decade of A*s; the question is what survives a request for proof. Good answers include reviews attributable enough to be checkable, before-and-after grades with some context, or an offer to put you in touch with a past family. The strongest tutors volunteer evidence before you ask, because it's the best sales asset they own. What should worry you is a blanket appeal to confidentiality — protecting students' names is right and normal, but it doesn't prevent a tutor from evidencing outcomes, and someone with genuinely good results will have found a way to show them. Mine are on the reviews page, for exactly this reason.

2. "What were your own maths results?"

This one feels rude, which is why almost nobody asks it — and why the answers are so revealing. You're hiring someone to coach exam performance, and their own performance is relevant data. It doesn't need to be perfect: a tutor who fought their way to a B can be a superb fit for a struggling GCSE student, because they remember what stuck feels like from the inside. But if the target is an A* at A-Level, you want someone who has personally operated at that level — and you want the number, not a vague "maths was always my strength". I publish mine, every unit and every mark, on the about page. The figure matters less than the willingness to show it.

3. "Is tutoring your full-time job?"

Most UK tutoring is a side-gig: undergraduates between lectures, teachers after a full day of teaching. Some of it is very good, and at the right price it can be the right buy — I've mapped the tiers honestly in what a maths tutor costs. But the answer predicts the two things that hurt families most: bandwidth and availability. A side-gig tutor has little room for planning or marking outside the hour, and their diary collapses at the worst moments — undergraduates disappear into their own exams in May, precisely when your child sits theirs. A full-timer's livelihood rides on results and reputation, and the work between lessons has somewhere to live. Neither answer disqualifies anyone. But "full-time" changes what you're entitled to expect for the money — and you should expect more.

4. "My child is on this exam board — what does that change?"

A tutor worth hiring will usually have asked you which board before you can ask them anything. The English boards — Edexcel, AQA, OCR and OCR MEI — teach the same core content but write recognisably different papers: different question styles, different emphasis in the applied content, different mark-scheme habits. In the first year of teaching a concept this matters little, and "maths is maths" is broadly true. In the final six months it matters a great deal, because preparation should narrow to the right board's past papers and their particular way of asking. A tutor who can't tell you how the boards differ hasn't done enough recent exam-facing work, whatever their degree certificate says.

5. "What happens between lessons?"

If you only have time for one question, make it this one — I said the same in the pricing article and repeat it here because nothing sorts the market faster. A lesson is one hour of the week; the grade is made in the other hundred and sixty-seven. Good answers are specific: homework set and marked, a plan that points at the exam date rather than drifting week to week, and a way for a student stuck on Tuesday to get unstuck before Friday. The weak answer is some version of "I'm always happy to set work if you'd like" — which means the system is you, the parent, supervising maths revision. Which is probably what you were paying to escape.

6. "How will you find out what my child actually needs?"

The presenting complaint is usually a symptom. Parents come to me about differentiation or trigonometry; the underlying cause, more often than not, is GCSE algebra that never became automatic — the fluency gap I've written about in the GCSE-to-A-Level jump. A good tutor treats the first sessions partly as diagnosis: watching the student work, finding where things actually break down, and only then committing to a plan. Be wary of the tutor who simply starts on this week's homework and is still following the school's timetable months later. That isn't tutoring, it's a homework service — pleasant, calming, and expensive relative to what it changes.

7. "How will we know it's working?"

Progress needs a number attached. The honest measures are timed past-paper marks tracked over months, and recurring error types being closed off one by one. "She seems more confident" is a good sign and still not evidence — term-time confidence and exam performance regularly part company. Ask what the tutor would measure and when you should expect movement; a fair answer is a few weeks for the first signals and a term for real grade movement. Anyone promising faster is selling something, and anyone guaranteeing a grade is selling something worse: no honest tutor guarantees what a teenager does in an exam hall.

8. "What would make you tell us to stop?"

My favourite question, because a tutor with no answer to it is planning to invoice you indefinitely. Good tutors can name their exit conditions without hesitating: the student can now work independently; the real problem sits outside tutoring — workload, sleep, the wrong subject choice; or the work between lessons isn't happening, so the money is buying reassurance rather than progress. I end engagements and turn enquiries away on those grounds every year. It costs revenue each time, and it's the best advertising I don't pay for. Incentives decide long relationships: you want a tutor whose reputation depends on outcomes, not on retention.

Two things I've deliberately left off

Safeguarding checks, because they're a precondition rather than a differentiator — ask any prospective tutor about their DBS status and how online lessons are run, and expect a straight answer; nothing about a good lesson needs privacy from parents. And price, because it got an article of its own — the short version is that the tier should match the problem, and a rate only means something once you know what surrounds the hour. What surrounds mine is itemised on the pricing page.

The bottom line

Eight questions is a twenty-minute conversation, and twenty minutes is nothing against a commitment that runs to two years and four figures. Notice what the questions have in common: each asks for evidence over assurance, and each is answered as much by how it's received as by what's said. A strong tutor enjoys this interview — it's a rare chance to show the things that justify the fee. A tutor who bristles at being asked for proof has given you the result of the interview early. Thank them for their time.