0:00 – Intro
0:10 – Our Origin Stories
8:04 – Points of Entry
13:12 – Can Anyone Tutor?
21:14 – The Journey of Our Students
24:57 – What Our Tutors Do Outside of the Classroom
29:11 – Advantages & Disadvantages
44:21 – Points of Exit
55:24 – Outro

Intro

[Music] the education Lounge podcastso when I was planning this this particular episode um one of the things that came up was

Our Origin Stories

does anybody actually plan to be a tutor from from the beginningand seeing as you’ve been a full-time tutor I wanted to see what your what your thoughts were how did you getinto into tutoring and more other steps that led you to to be with usum well no first of all I can’t pretend as if I as if I planned on becoming a tutor I I didn’tum I think I was looking I was looking for jobs and while while looking for jobs I was um I think I just decided tostart tutoring as a as a side thing as a side thing and then it eventually Iended up really enjoying it and um yeah just and ended up doing it fulltime and then I remember there was a day that we would we were driving past um down this road and I was like ohthere’s a there’s a tuition Center this this opened up um and I stopped byum dropped my CVS this was back in the good days when like YouTube weren’t here I’ve always been there yeah no no butwhen I came in you both weren’t you both weren’t here um thinkyour mom wasn’t in so who was this yes someone else I don’tremember her name was she that one of these receptionme yeah maybe yeah because we’ve always been yeah I I mean I didn’t I didn’t see herewe have no no no because before we had a satellite and I think I was there quitea lot yeah because I didn’t see I didn’t see either one of you I didn’t see I didn’t see you for months and and Ididn’t see I didn’t see John for like yeah a good year or so I I I’d heard ofI’d heard of you I’d heard of you but I didn’t teach lies and I didn’t teach inthe center generally apart from Saturdays so I was only doing Saturdays oh okay and we had that I remember Ididn’t have time because I was I was at Uni oh 2014. yeah I did my other yeah I didn’t didn’twas doing another degree okay I don’t know why I was like oh your your Masters right yeah yeah yeah so Ineeded something that worked on Saturday yeah yeah so yeah I knew of you becauseI’d heard him yeah so yeah so I carry on USA the infamousum and no uh what was that I lost so you hadn’t you came in you handed your CVinto oh yeah yeah and then um and then I think I’ve got a call back from from puny again asking me to comein for a trial lesson and then yeah I’ve I’ve been here ever since can’t get ridof him yeah so what was it you were looking to to do before like when as as tutoringwas a as a side thing what was the matter um it’s a something within within the finance within the finance worldyeah something sort of where I could use it skills I picked up on yeah during my degreesum but yeah when I I when I started the tutorum I I really enjoyed it and also I realized it was taking upalso quite a bit of my time but because I was enjoying it I just thought let me let’s just let’s just do this yeah yeahum and yeah I think that’s that’s sort of my my story my start yeah mine wasfairly similar like I did um graphic designer at Uni and I was looking for design jobs andtutoring on the side um as I have been since like since before I went to UNI actually since theage of 17 I was tutoring um on a Saturday and stuff like we weretalking about um it’s a very long time yeah and thenwent to UNI did design and everything else uhstarted applying for like design jobs when I got back um most of them at that time didn’t reallylead anywhere I did a bit of freelancing on that and then sort of combine the two together so combined what I’d learned from designand what I’d learned from tutoring and we started designing the the um booksand we non-verbal verbal books that’s all stuff but I don’t think so because I I don’tthink you were there at that time I don’t think I did um so before I went to Korea it was liketaught inquiry for a while um I came in to write examsfor I think it was GL was it GL style or something likethat I don’t know I’m not I can’t remember if this on my head cssy I think it was MassI was just writing tests but then I hadbefore that I had taught a friend um a-level philosophybecause she missed the first charge so she missed the first yearof so I was trying to help her with her Asia of philosophy and so that was myfirst foray into teaching because I was just helping her during the summer catchup because she hadn’t done any of it and she had exams in January right so we went through the entire as courseI just helped to sort of understand each part and taught her philosophy essentiallyum that first year curriculum and then I kind of forgot about it for a whilewent off to UNI did my philosophy and Classics degree then I came back and Idecided it’d be nice to do some traveling I’d wrote some papers and Iwent off to Korea for for a year um quite enjoyed teaching so I taughtfull classes and that kind of thing um then I came back started tutoring ona Saturday and I was doing my Master’s Degree I heard about this guy called turith and thenum and then I kind of got more and more into it and started picking up more and more hoursum just tutoring a lot of things actually like because at one point I think I waslike I was teaching everything everything yeah I was teaching yeah I was just I was teachinglike five all five subjects I was doing it’s quite well it’s kind of what happened to the beginning of like astartup isn’t it you have many different hats that you have to wear yeah and you have to wear them all at the same timeyeah so yeah so I was trying to just trying to teach biology trying to teachchemistry yeah I was relatively good at physics but like it was was fairly difficult andthen you were trying to I was trying to manage like uh quite a lot ofdiverse well year groups and that kind of thing yeah well this is why I mean we started with 11 plusum and it was the 11 plus kids that were with us that Denzel said like oh we’regoing into secondary can we get help with this and we’re like I don’t really do that it’s like oh can you can youstart and then yeah yeah yeah I took I basically took second second words andthen you started doing weekday sessions for maths yeah yeah and that probablyhelped me quite a lot because I could and then you start doing Saturdays formaths yeah and I was like thank God because I had like the I had thissession where I had like eight students and they’re all different year groups and they were doing different subjectsso it was just a nightmare so then we started dividing yeah it’s kind of different for us because we now have

Points of Entry

like two centers you know looking to expand that sort of thing for most people what are the what are thedifferent points of Entry because your point of entry was you were doing some tutoring at home same with us we were tutoring like hiring halls and that sortof stuff um but when you came here we obviously had this first centerfor most people that’s not really the case so where where do most people start their tutoring Journeyuh well I think first of all um make sure you’ve got an idea of whatsort of subjects you like uh have a passion for and then also maybesubjects that you’re sort of specialists in um and then you know pop down to you knowyour local tuition Center or maybe if you’re uh if you’re atUniversity see if there’s um any sort of tutoring roles available thereum so what have you but then a lot of people don’t actually join centers a lot of people just do um yeah online ones orones or have people go to their house or go to people’s houses themselves or uhyeah so I think a good thing is if if you want to go that route then speak to family and friendsyeah that’s how we started yeah yeah see if there’s anybody that that needs that needs help with a particular thingI don’t know this like initially I like I said the first time I tutored it waslike a friend from school yeah who needed you know needed to catch up quiteyou know she had a whole a-level first year to learn and I first of all helpedher in the summer and obviously I didn’t expect payment or anything like thatthat was just I thought I’d help out help her out so that was initially how I got intoteaching yeah leverage your connections that’s always true in anything any any business yeah um but you could also usesome agencies yeah like a tutor hunt it’s quite beingtreated also as well and some of the others like you can you can join an agencyum or yeah pop down to your local Center I think the difference between a center and an agency is um withwith a center you don’t have to do any um marketing really yeah you might youmight not get as much as you would get for like a pure one-to-one from like going to a family a family umwho can you know who can afford someone to come around and due to your your child but when you tutor in a in acenter you don’t have to worry about finding students because the whole point of you being there is that they find students yeah for you yeah yeah you’vegot them a bit more job security I suppose that’s that’s a way of thinking about it yeah whereas if you’re I thinkchoosing on your own you have to actively go and find your clients that’s definitely andthat’s true well it’s like the way it it works is like a student goes they go onto like their agency website search for maths tutor in usually location yeahbecause it’s quite nice to get it face to face if you can and then they have acertain budget as well so like obviously like a filter type thing yeah obviously like a tutor that there’s liketransparent sale prices in terms of what you get for a tutor usually if you’re more experienced shooter you can chargemore or sometimes even like gone to Oxbridge it’s quite a lot of quite anadvantage I mean sometimes I just think like is does that make all the difference in the world not necessarilylike yeah yeah a lot of people don’t view it as anecessity isn’t it so when you’re on your own it can be difficult to I think unless you’re like specificallyif you’re an a-level student for instance and you’re specifically going for Oxbridge I think it’s quite can beuseful to have someone who’s done the equivalent degree that you’re going for yeah andgot on to it and has experience and can help you with the process a little bit becauseyeah not not just stocks which I think for there’s any Universe yeahum you know with math subjects a lot of the like universities want you to do additionalexams that you may need you need help with same with uh medicineum Dentistry yeah um so that’s one of the great things andquite an empowering thing about a student going and looking and finding a tutor is youcan find someone who suits who suits you it’s a compatible compatibilityI mean that that’s always something that we’ve got a we do consider when we’ve got you know when we put a student in aclass well yeah I mean that’s what the free trial’s for yeah just to see whether they’re happy with the way that we work yeahbecause different people have different

Can Anyone Tutor?

do you think anyone can become can become a cheater you need a good um balance between personability andknowledge I think because somebody could have all the knowledge in the world so they’re like an amazing physics tutorum but if they’re not able to translate those ideas in a way that yourstudent understands then you’re not going to be a good tutor and likewise if you know how to speak to people youdon’t have any knowledge yeah so you need a good balance of that’s a good point yeah I think I thinkit’s quite quite challenging it’s more challenging than people you don’t move on into industry on thisdefinitely until no yeah um because you managing expectationsparents expectations giving good feedback like valuable feedback yeahknowing what to look out for a skill that you need to get good at doing so you’re doing a similar job to a teacherin that way with what we do it’s not just doing what a teacher does because you also have to be an admin person you also have to be asalesperson yes you also have to be like a marketing person I think teachers have to do quite quite a lot of admin topsyeah probably admin yeah but I mean in terms of like marketing and studentsit’s a different type of admin isn’t it I suppose you’re managing more of thefinancial side whereas like teachers I mean the head teacher’s domain will bethat yeah managing that but you know they’re less involved with the teachingside whereas a tutor you’ve got to manage your client base you’ve got to manage feedback you’ve got to managefinances finances marketing yeah um sales but then with with the teachersit’s like there’s there’s a lot more a lot more regulation yeah anyway so yeah there’s a differencebetween being like specialized and not like we like with what we do we have tobe able to do several several different things one day you’re a website developer one dayyou’re a photographer one day or you know it’s different um yeah but you mentioned about umregulations cemented regulations yeah so one of the weird things is that there’s no umthere’s no barrier to entry with tuition what are your thoughts on that because anybody can it’sunregulated there’s no barrier so whether you’re good or not you could say okay I’m I’m gonna choose a part of methinks there should be a little bit of Regulation yeah I’m surprised there isn’t I thought a few like three or fouryears ago I thought yeah there’s going to be something coming in soon especially the size of the market waswhat two billion yeah so it’s about two I think they they originally thought so the southern trustthought originally though it’s about six billion yeah but I think they’ve they’veconsidered it an overestimate however I’m I am I am thinking the Market’s alot bigger than people think because they’re so much Undeclared[Music] for many people it’s a cash businesswith the size of the market being that big you would expect there to be some sortof Regulation there’s an underground economy maturation yeah um and that is a con that is a concernsafeguarding’s a massive thing isn’t it like obviously you’re dealing with children it’s child careum yeah there’s no sort of mandatory regulation in place reallyno what do you think should be in place I mean some some things that some things that weprobably that we think should be in place we we do anyway just voluntarily like yeah DBS DBS yes we do ofstedsJesus Association well I don’t think that’s as necessarily asimportant but they’re definitely a DBS um because you’re dealing with DBS isthe basic like you need to have that yeah I I would have thought that that would make sense as just one like ifthey could just do one thing to improve the tutoring Market it probably would be to make it mandatory to have a DPS andif they made it like with any change in regulation you want it to be as easy as possible to do it soI think like making it easier to do quicker to do and you know but but in myexperience generally dbs’s can be a little effort to get done yeah yeah yeahum so what happens when you’re a random person who’s tutoring from from yourhome from your dining room table um how do you regulate that you you can’tlike um I do think it’s something that a parent can like if you’re okay you canyou can say like look um it’d be great if you could show me somelike a a DBS of some kind or something like that um sometimes parents ask for things likekind of like they asked to see qualifications I was just going to mention that I thought I think that I think that’s important not as inhaving a background in the subject that you teach because we’ve had like I’ve had it whereyou know I’ve had students come from elsewhere and you know they’ve been taught bypeople who aren’t necessarily Specialists and then they’ve been taught something which is just totally wrong and I’m like no that’s that’s notcorrect that that’s actually wrong um I don’t know I kind of have a sorryI think what having a qualification in the subject you’re teaching it just gives you you’ve got that that’s what a seal ofapproval until you know what you’re you know yeah but then at the same time you do get you know people you knowlike yourself maybe you do this one extra reading on yeah on certain thingsand um certain subjects and topics and so that can help too I think like obviouslywhat team you want to reach a high level and so you’re able to sort of teach thematerial that you’re yeah this is what I was going to say because I think I’m able to teach the material that I teachyeah I’m not a specialist in any of the like I’m not specialist in maths or inprimary teaching or yeah there’s certain things that I’ve I’ve I’ve I’ve I’ve taught that I’ve been on comfortabledelivering yeah in a sense yeah um but because you have to do what you haveto do yeah so you you have to look inside of your teaching like biology notsubjects I’ve ever been particularly fond of um same I I do I do appreciate it butlike I’ve never been particularly good at it but if I have to research if Ihave to teach something in biology I will do research and prepare so I’ve a pretty strong understanding ofwhat they need to know yeah well this comes back to um being personable and being able to it’snot it’s not all about the knowledge it’s like yeah if you know what you need to know but you’re able to explain it ina way that that child gets yes yeah that’s way more important than knowingeverything about biology and not being able to communicate any of it true I I didn’t like the personalrelationship that you have with your students is critical like it’s criticalbecause yeah you can have all the knowledge in the world but if you can’t if you if they don’t like you if theyif they just don’t get on with you they don’t like what you the way that youexplain things or anything like that then yeah which does happen yeah you need to be quiet skilled at quite a lot ofthings I think to Be an Effective tutor so like I said most people came to us

The Journey of Our Students

the beginning before 11 plus and we sort of grew into starting secondary when when you came onboard um what at this point in time what do most peoplecome to us for and then what do they sort of once they’re finished with us what whathappens to them what do they end up doing uh we still have a large majoritycoming in for 11 plus so wanting to get into you know grammar schools Independent Schools yeahum we have a large percentage that come for GCSE and and then maybe a smallerpercentage that do a do a level a level subjects with us but that seems to be growing as well now yeah it’s the samepeople same effect that we had with the primary inters secondaries like they’re staying on first yes it’s quite cyclicalisn’t it yeah well they’re so they’re all exam related so we do yeah we do Iguess we’ve got a few people that do come to us just for General like to keep up sort of I I mean rather than justexams one one sort of nice thing about cheating and I imagine it’s the same with with teaching is when the studentsare younger they tend to ask us you know about good sort of career path to take yeah I’ve had that and you knowI feel like we’ve but we’ve had some sort of impact on themthey want to though a lot of them want to some some do yeah we’ve had a few this year haven’t weyeah but very few want to like do too soon astheir main yeah like as sort of something that they can do at University and we have a lot that ask aboutmedicine Dentistry um the engineering subjects um yeah and we’ve also had some studentsgo on to become doctors dentists um some go into architecture we’ve had afew in architecture I’m trying to have we had anyone go into media data scienceas well data science Yeah medium I don’t know um probablyis all of them yeah I mean I I generally dothink it’s had a positive effect on on you know like I remember like the oneof them who went into architecture she started when she was like 14 ish and she was I’d say kind of a bstudent at that time so like it says something that she was able to get like go to UCL yeah she did very well yeahum I don’t think and and I mean it was the the main thing was theI I saw that she grew in confidence that was the main thingum that’s always them that that’s the best thing about tutoring is when when a child or a student grows in inconfidence the flavor looks a lot as a tutor I think you’re hoping thatthat confidence translates the then the mobility in school yeah yeah and it is alot of you know your career as well like yeah yeah we’ve had people that have been studentswith us and then become tutors with us as well in the past yeah throughouttheir University time and that kind of thing yeah yeahum and then they’ve gone off on to do oh we had one one person who’s gone on to do data science that’s quite likemachine learning sort of stuff quite complex

What Our Tutors Do Outside of the Classroom

so I have our current tutors what is everybody doing because at the moment in terms of full time it’s us threeright managers owners that sort of thing what aboutum the the people that are running the sessions what are they currently doing quite a mixture of people yeah so wehave a few doing medicine um I believe entering their final yearyeah two I think yeah two of them wait um no UCL threeoh nickels finish isn’t he finished yeah yeah and who else do we have umand one working that works full-time in a bank yeahanother one who got a lawyer yeah yeah then you have a son yeah ohyeah chemistry as well um oh yeah yeah degreeum I’ve forgotten everyonethe teachers he doesn’t care about youoh yeah so they’re on but they were both on a couple of podcasts agobut about teaching yeah so um it’s a real mixture of people that’sthat that is a side thing though for them isn’t it yeah they’ve been quite a few hours a week yeah it’s it’s fairlyin line with what they’re doing so it’s yeah that’s trulyjust one of our teachers he doesn’t do medicine I knew about like two tuition’simpact on him and he’s he said it it’s helped him so much when he’s talking topatients because he’s like you your job is a doctor is tocommunicate well that’s one of the things that you need you need to be able to communicate things totwo patients and he’s in his life has really helped because when you talk to students you need toexplain it sometimes in really quite basic terms and we’d you know when someone’s got like someillness or Melody of some kind you’ve got to explain it to them in simpleterms that they understand and he says it’s translated really well over to so I think what it does to yoursoft skills is quiet yeah transformative for those who choose to go into it soprobably something that everyone should not everyone should try but likeum a lot of people should at least maybe try once just to see how it goeslike just give a free session and just see it’s not even just talking to to students because they’ve got talked toparents a lot of time as well they have to do written feedback yeah you’ve covered just how you talk to everyoneyeah so um I think it’s done wonders in that regard even talking like to us toother tutors yeah like talking on the phone is a big thing for meyeah I I was so bad at talking on the phone when I started now I think I’m I’mokayish so yeah we’ve got a lot better yeah Imean I when I when I first started I wasn’t good talking in front of people I wasn’t good on leaving voice members ohyeah I still yeah I still don’t feel verycomfortable leaving voicemails but I still oh I’ll try it yeah a lot of that comes with age but a lot of it comeswith like actually practicing it um and obviously we’ve been doing this for a while now so yeah speaking of the Medicsthey should be on the next episode hopefully yeah apparently very very difficult to getthem on they’re so busy they’re so busy all the time yeah but it looks like we’re gonna find we’ll find the timesoon maybe maybe after the exams I suppose no they go straight into late placements and stuff ohum I was speaking to them the other day but they should yeah they’ll find time they should they should be on the nextone hopefully um what would you say

Advantages & Disadvantages

in terms of like advantages and disadvantages of uh you know what I’m gonna say forthis uh for me I I so the best part ofmy day at least is the the actual teaching aspect you know once we’ve got through all of the adminum endless I mean I think we all try and make our our classes relatively fun uh it helpsthem to learn yeah I think for me one of the advantages is just engaging with them you know speaking to themum I think it makes me makes me feel young umthere’ll be time there was what happened the other Saturday oh um yeah the other Saturday I think oneof the one of the kids was like I think looking at the answers in looking at theanswers in the pack and um I think some of the other kids picked up on it and they were like oh thatsucks that sucks because when we were going through the answers um like I think there were well two ofthem were getting everything right and I was like okay like I I tested them and then the kids wereall like oh that sucks that and I was like what that’s us I was like what do you mean and then and then I yeah I knowI’m not that quickso yes I learned a new word you learned part of a new wordum yes I know I say I like John’s quite sauce I don’t know if I’m using that rightdepends what job’s doing what jobs if you’re doing something that’s suspiciousand then the other one no no the other the other one was um Riz they were told during the breakthey were talking about rizz and I was like what are you talking about and they were like oh no this there was also oneof the other one of the other boys has wrist and I was like what what what are you talking about and then they just started laughing and gigglingum and then one of them told me after and I was like okay project has wait you know do you knowwhat it is I don’t know this one already educate us education I generally knowmost of them I don’t know this one I think we should let people in the comments tell you so you see I I pick upon these things because I because you’re secondary they’re all no no no thesewere these were primary school kids really yeah these were these were the year fives wow and I thought I thought that’s verystrange but uh I’ll let you uh no[Laughter]I have to find out normally I know most of them yeah I’m surprised you haven’t heardthat I’ve because now that I’ve heard it they they I hear it I seem to hear it even moreoften now it’s weird right because with what we dowe the kids that we teach stay the same age because once one lot leaves another onecomes in and you’re constantly with year 11 children yeah but we get older each year yeah it’s really weird that’sthat’s one of the difference it’s like who you teach doesn’t changeyou’re reminded of your age your age yeah quite a lot yeah I’ve been noticing it more recently I never used toyes yeah and everyone everyone goes oh you mustbe younger than project to metechnically you are yeah but I mean they they think it’s like I don’t know a fewyears or something but it’s like a few months yeah it’s literally like three monthsalmost a day we’ve had all sorts with regards to age yeah without me beingconsiderably older than you got and then but you are and they’re not 48. no nono no no the funniest was the when the year 11 said that project was it’s two yeah I was surprised surprisedI couldn’t stop laughing sometimes I don’t know whether they’re being serious or not no no no nothey they genuinely were they thought he was they thought he was in his fourth fourthyeah I think they said 40 at first yeah and then one of them was like well Ithought he was 48. when I was at 48. they actually said 4042. no no she didn’t she said yeah she said no no 45 she said 45. whoathat that is usbut to be fair I’ve got told I was 57 which I’m was by what one particular student Iknow she was messing about yeah but what you realize is some of them don’t have any umany concepts of scale yeah like ageor they got it right completely I don’t know maybe maybe you act like a 48 year old maybe I’ll have to count the ringson my handsso that’s is that an advantage or disadvantage it’s a bit of both really well it kind of keeps you young but alsoreminds you how old you are I don’t know what happens when we actually are 48yeah scary isn’t it yeah because we’ll still be yeah the same age groupno it’s like weird though because I feel funny enough as the kids get older itgets advantageous to be nearer near their age and when they’re youngerI think it helps to be further away yeah like like as in I agreeum when when when you’re when you’re younger and you’re close to the age and the teenagersI I don’t know they feel more connected to you but then more relatable yeah but thenI don’t know whether it’s just the parent like just my experience dealing with like Primary School parents they Ithink they like someone who’s slightly mature as it weredo you think it’s just to control Behavior possibly yeah the the older ones areworse behaved than the younger ones to be fair we should get them on I think there are some of them are going to come on at some pointI think after they get the results though I think it’ll come back from a few storiesyeah um yeah no I find so like Jesus I see kids and stuff like that I think beingcloser to them in age is sometimes helpful I don’t know because they feel like it’s more like amentoring feeling yeah I suppose it was like some of the others then bit more so the theprimary school a lot I think actually as I get older I get better at handling them uh yeah actually probablyright like and and also if I still see the Elder lettersum seeing us as mental sort of thing because I asked God they asked me a lot of questions about like what to do next like career andlike all that sort of stuff what advice you give I I saystart something as soon as possible start your own thing as soon as possible because you went down that routepartly but even if I even if I didn’t I just think it’s good to start your ownthing and know how things run kind of similar to what we spoke about last time but then couldn’t you say you could alsosay like if you enter into someone’s business and then you understand how that works then you’ll learn you withoutthe business risk yeah the best thing to do is to enter into a startup becauseyou will see everything everything works or small business like similar to whatwe’re doing here if you go straight into like I don’t know NatWest for example you’re not going tosee how everything runs but if you come in here you’ll see us you’ll see us working on finances you’ll see usworking on social media you’ll see us doing this sort of stuff like you’ll see how how a business actually functions ifyou can pick that up at a young age yeah because you see more aspects to thebusiness whereas like as a business grows in scale it’s like you see less and less of ityeah because because you get more and more team members and each team member becomes more specializedyeah so that’s one thing I say to them like if you if you have an interest likeyeah start if you start now it’s possible if your family if anyone inyour family as well has has a business I’d definitely recommend like try and you know helping them out orsomething like that like just just to understand how things work yeah because it’s what we do we do tutorlike the debt or subject that they come in to teach but there’s so much more to it there’s somany other think about how many other things people have asked you apart from maths yeah yeahall sorts yeah so I see that as part of our role yeahso even you know the architecture student she’s asking me about like whatdo you think about about that and I was like yeah no that’s a really good field to go intosorry yeah um I’ve I did think of a fairly bigdisadvantage which we have spoken about before which is your your work time where your classesare are literally the exact times where nobody else is working yeah very it’s the inverse because when everyone’s atschool or at work you can’t tutor during the day really unless you utilize like time differences across the world orsomething um it’s evenings and weekends so when we’re at work is when everybody else isnot at work yeah that’s one of the biggest disadvantages I would sayno I I I I yeah I I I agree with that there are there are times where likeI’ve wanted to go out and I can’t because I’m you know yeah I’m working and ending lateum is the main issue yeah yeah yeah like what time do you normally get homebecause because I live about A Million Miles Away um usually usually about eight somethingyeah usually about between 7 30 and 8 depending on the day eight o’clock mostly but like some people like theytutor really late like so they them they some some yeah some people like they because they’vegot I don’t know a level you’ve had this as well haven’t you like you’ve had late a-level classes or likeGCSE classes like where where you’re like at eight o’clock starting a class and then yeah no I used to be here withuh Savage until like half ten yeah no half tenyeah yeah he needed it yeah I had um some of my family memberssort of did cheat on us on the side for a bit they do their full day of work and then they’d come home they’d havelike cook and have dinner and then and then they’ll have like kids come over for possessions like starting at like nineor something wow that’s right but yeah probably the biggest thing isthe weekend because it’s like that’s the weekend and and yeah it’s the time when you knowyou actually have students free for classes so it’s like yeah you you do feel pressure tohave classes I mean if we didn’t have classes we can it wouldn’t be well the business wouldn’t be wouldn’t workwouldn’t work no but I don’t know Saturday Saturday last stressful but I I they’re my most enjoyable day yeah likeI don’t really I guess I guess not a lot of people can say this but I don’t feel like I’m coming to workbecause I I enjoy the most most things that we do I enjoyso it doesn’t really feel it depends because I I mean I I feel like I’m coming to workum on a Saturday I feel like I’m coming to work but thenI think I also have lessons like back to back yeah yeah you have you have a lot of hours now when I’ve got when I’ve gotlike seven hours on Saturday I I feel like I’m pretty much at my limityeah oh yeah I’m like to go to do more than that would bequiet you can’t because there are a certain point you start getting like brain fog and yeah likeDelirious at every Point yeah also also like school holidaysbecause that’s actually a good time to get students ahead is just doingholidays and half terms and things like that but then everyone else is out sort of I don’t know having holidays orwhatever so you feel well there’s not not that much of a break for the whole yearnuts that’s different we had a couple weeks Christmas but that’s about it that’sespecially during the center whereas if you have as one of the disadvantages ofchoosing a center because as opposed to being completely independent because youcan choose your hours a lot more yeah I guess I guess so it’s different for us because like we’dhave to be just find find cover like we’re all both away at the same time inJuly this year yeah so we’re gonna have to figure outum if you factor all of that in it’s you’d realize it it makes it seem as ifit’s very difficult to make a career out of this like if you factor in the times that well you can actually tutor and youknow bringing the most most income well think about it it’s like a veryactually it’s a very good rate of pay when you when you are Chooser and but like you’vegot a lot of dead time so as in it’s it’s actually it actually makes a lot of sense fora student to to do it as a side hustle because you yeah it’s ridiculouslyefficient for you know yeah that’s all the time the time that goes in versusthe money you get yes yeah um isn’t is better than a lot of otherstudent jobs I think in that way yeah and more and with a lot of themthey already have the knowledge yeah so it’s just developing the personal person ability yeah side of things and you’reright yeah you think of it as developing yourself as well you’re also getting like a lesson in personal developmentjust yeah just by running those classes and no no nothing um so once people

Points of Exit

are in yeah how do they leave do they what are they what are the umwhat are the exit strategies of being a tutorit can be quite difficult because because when you’ve got like it’s very very difficult to leavehalfway through an academic year because like emotionally I think andalso um because it comes with our parents going oh likeum you’ll definitely have like complaints if you were to do that umyou you want to take your cohort through no matter what so if you’re not prepared to take yourcohort through an academic year then I wouldn’t start in the first place that’s true that’s agood point um just because you feel sort of obligated yeah when I when I firstjoined here um your mom said that the kids had hada few different it’s always stuck in my head she said that had a few different cheeses and it hadn’t you know it hadn’thelped them that each tutor had left for you know whatever the reason was so when I cameon board I made sure that that I was never you know going to leave Imade sure that I was there oh yeah yeah you get like like blocking out theAcademic Year for all your students is is important because yeah it’s what we say to when we hire new tutors it’s likeyou need to give us a couple months notice at least but you need to see it through until they’ve done their examslike August whatever it is because they need that consistency and and that you know they also need to form a bondbond with you and that can be difficult if you know you’ve got this conveyor belt of tutors a lot a lot of the timewhen um like we had this with Trevose actually um he had likehe had this GCSE yeah I was basically a science teacher because he had so much disruption in schoolso he’s like he didn’t have a physics tutor or a teacher in school and hedidn’t have like I think was it there was like someone on maternity knew eventhings like that um so he didn’t have like a consistent teacher so I was like the mostconsistent academic presence and you too in mathsso you didn’t have like a a lot of kids like consistency yeah it’s it’s again really overlookedhow important consistency is yeah especially when they’re younger it’simportant but I think like the impact overall on older shoot sort of like someof the older students is overlooked yeah so um like they’re still important yearsand you need to they they need some consistency how many times have you heard of like uha student having one teacher one year and they really enjoy that that teaching and then their teacher changesand then they have a quite a bad time of it because like because of that they’rewith the teacher now that they don’t have that so yeah it’s usually maths andphysics doesn’t it the stem subjects well physics is like there’s a real short shortageI mean if you do get a Physics degree you can literally do any anything afterlike in terms of um if you wanted to go into like data science it’s pretty common for like myfriend who he did a PhD in theoretical particle physicsand all of his friends who they didn’t go into physics they wentinto data science that kind of thing because it’s quite an easy transition sohow far can you take tuition because the way it is here is you can you caneither just do the other side thing alongside your degree and then you can stop and do something like become amedic or whatever you’re doing as your main thing you could continue tutoring evenalongside that or you could take it to the level that we’ve taken it to yeah or you can gofurther you can set up your incentives and you can leave it at one Center or you can leave it running yourself running two or three or you coulddo it that’s going to be trying to do is franchise the model and like have centers around the country aroundthe world yeah so that’s like a really big scope for what youwhat you could do right yeah like tutoring I think it’s fairly it’s probably one of the most adaptablecareers in that in that sense and in that I think there’s quite a lot of exit pass because you can you can leave atany level yeah you like those and if if you’re going into medicine or something like thatum you might not have time to tutor um and then you could you could leavetuition or you could use it to support your low salary as a junior doctorum um so so and you can take it up at any pointagain or or leave it but I do forget it’s important like to carry your cohortthrough I said well if you start tutoring someone be responsible I think for thatparticular pass um which one sorry uh you know in terms of setting up more than one Center yeahbut probably overall anyway for being a cheater um something you’re probably good at is is having strongorganizational skills like I think whereas I I I don’t particularly but butI think you do need strong organizational skills to do right to manage there’s a lot going on yeah to beable to manage everything yeah um there’s there’s um so I think that’ssomething to consider like if you’re maybe someone who’s not very well organized then but that but that’sthat’s where going into it that’s where going into a center will help right because you’re not the onedoing the organizing you’re just like okay I’ve got to turn up here from five to sevenyeah and then that’s it you’re Outsourcing the organization stuff to people like us right yeahthe more students who have the more difficulties organizational isn’t itbecause you’ve got to manage more more people’s time yeahum so so even if you’re in sort of private tutor like not affiliated withthe center if you have a large role of students but you will feel there is a lot of organizing yeah Ithink the advantage of running a business or having like having a center or something is is that you canobviously build up an asset because your clients on your your roleum that becomes worth something yeah it’s a bit like setting up anaccountancy firm or something like that and then having a role of clientswhich you can then sell to your next um well to the people who to take over likenew management that they’re sort of uh quite a lot of potential if you run acenter to actually utilize that but but if if we if we go down the franchise route there’s evenmore that you can sell at that point that’s if you’re the franchiseyeah but like we said if you wanna if you want to Outsource your managing ofyour tutoring hours do you go to a center if you want to Outsource your processes as a center yeah then youwould become a franchisee yeah because all the processes are laid out right all the systems are laid out yeahum but then you pick it up and you just sort of open and everything’s all ready to go right but then even in in thatinstance if you if you’re a franchisee and you know utilizing someone’s model whatyou build up in your Center or whatever still becomesyeah yeah so you know for some people they they rely on their retirement to like sell theirtheir franchise that they’ve they’ve bought for more money than they bought it for blown yeah I guess if you do a good it’sstill your own business it’s still yeah if you the more you build up and the better you make it the more valuable it’s going to be yeahum so that’s a I think that’s kind of like a very that’s like the high levelaccept plan yeah um but for the majority of tutors it probably isn’t thehow they generally exit it’s generally because they there’s other commitments in life again the way of tuition like itcan be very it can be very anti-social in the in terms of the hours that you work and I think a lot of people aren’tprepared so yeah to do that but if you’re doing it how we’re doing it interms of like going down this franchise route and that sort of thing the it’s anti-social for it in in theshort term because in the long term we’re not going to be running seveneight hour days ourselves that would be managed by somebody else wouldn’t itwell you you’d be working at probably different times as well because yeah youwould still have long long days but it just the tasks might be different but the tasks wouldn’t necessarily need to bedone in the anti-social hours is what I mean yeah yes yeah no yeah like a lot of it could be donefrom home or from another office or you know you can set up a completelyonline tutoring business as well um I I mean I feel like your client base isless sticky and I get it so it says like the P people become invested in thetuitions and they’re so like people actually enjoy coming here umI think face to face is better anyway yeah but online tuition is less stickyin that regard because you you have many of the advantages ofremote working but you get all the disadvantages too if you are doing it online like think aboutthink about how many overheads we have to run somewhere physical like thisall the little things you have to think about hmm yeah no he’s very attractive so I constantly think about that yeahbut I do think from having to do online during during lockdown I do think faceto face is just better yeah much better it’s like 70 something percent of yourcommunication is non-verbal no I definitely yeah like I don’t think it did good for anyone no it was just a theonly option at the time yeah the art you seem to have uh yeah just just sleepy

Outro

so it’s gonna have a nap yeah no I’m starting to get sleepy I don’t knowokay you know they’re thinking of it reintroducing Bears into the UKI have a comment there what a terrible I dothank you for joining us on today’s episode we’ll see you next time [Music]foreign [Music]