Working in a school vs private tutoring
Lots of teachers question whether it’s worth taking the plunge and becoming a private tutor – will they be able to earn a full salary? How will they get pupils? Is it better than working in a school?
There are a lot of teachers it seems, particularly in the U.K., who are fed up with life in the classroom and all the admin/politics/unnecessary paperwork that goes along with it. I have been extremely lucky in my teaching career as the MoD schools I worked at in Germany were absolutely incredible places to work. Although we followed the British curriculum, class sizes were much smaller, and we also had a lot of benefits such as free buses to go on class trips. I used to go on a trip every two weeks.
My head teacher was also fabulous and trusted us to do our jobs so there was a really great vibe in school and well-being and morale was good. Of course, all of these factors can make a huge difference to your decision making.
In this blog, I will explore the pros and cons of both (in no particular order), highlighting the aspects I feel could be a swaying-factor in making the decision to go self-employed.
Parents’ evenings
Although I enjoyed parents evenings on the whole, this is something I don’t have to worry about as a tutor. Also, I was very lucky that at my school, parents afternoon started after lunch, so we didn’t have to be in until late into the evening and were generally finished by 5:30. I can still vividly remember the face-ache I used to experience in the evening after those parents’ evenings though!
Writing reports
Writing reports is one of the most time-consuming parts of being a teacher. At the schools I taught at, we had to do a very short report after each term and a long one at the end of the year. It felt like a real chore – if I only had to do one or two, I would actually enjoy it, but it’s the relentlessness of the task and trying to stay motivated to write them all by the deadline. After spending an entire year teaching a child, I also wanted to do them justice, and trying to find the words and phrases to do that, without sounding totally generic, can be tricky. As a private tutor, I sometimes write reports if parents request this, and charge my hourly admin fee, but it’s certainly not the same pressure as writing 25+ reports several times a year.
Staff meetings
At my last school, I was maths leader, so was often responsible for leading staff meetings. Although I absolutely loved having this responsibility and thoroughly enjoyed planning inspiring workshops, it was really nerve-wracking! I tend to get super nervous leading up to something like that, and once I begin I’m absolutely fine, but it’s still an additional stress. These days, I have lots of fun creating inspiring workshops for parents and teachers.
Attending staff meetings also takes up a big chunk of the working week. At my last school, I had staff meetings on Mondays until 4:30pm if memory serves me correctly and also an SLT meeting every Wednesday and these could go on to 5:30pm. As a private tutor (sole trader), you obviously don’t have staff meetings with yourself haha.
People to bounce ideas off
Another key difference of being a teacher in a classroom is having people to bounce ideas off and plan with. Even just running through an idea with someone can be invaluable. As a tutor, I have had some of my pupils for almost 2 years. I have taught unique English and maths lessons for 1.5 years, as the pupils have remained the same so I can’t repeat lessons. In a classroom, if you have different children every year and remain in the same year group, the planning and execution of lessons becomes easier, and you can improve upon previous lessons that you have taught before.
Buzz of classroom
One of my favourite things about being a teacher in a classroom was the buzz of excitement and being able to do active learning in lessons, where children could be in groups and move around the room. I also absolutely loved doing singing with my class (with guitar and ukuleles), teaching them the ukulele and also story time. We’d all sit in the reading corner at the end of every day (and also in guided reading sessions) for story time.
When I do my online group lessons, I aim to replicate the buzz of a real classroom as closely as possible – for that reason, nobody is muted.
I also have my virtual playground to get that part of being in a classroom that I adore – random chit chat and playing games.
When I teach my face-to-face homeschool groups, I also get the buzz of a class (albeit a very small one)!
Monday to Friday
Unless you work part-time in a school, you have to work five days a week from 8:00-4:00pm (and usually later or earlier). You get your PPA time in there too, but rarely can you plan an entire week during that 2-3 hours, as well as sourcing/creating all the resources to go along with it. As a self-employed person, you can choose your own working hours. If you’ve read my blog ‘work-life balance’ you’ll know that I only tutor Tuesdays-Thursdays and childmind in my breaks and on Fridays. I absolutely love working a four-day week and this is something I would struggle to let go of! As well as that, I tend to give myself around 8 weeks holiday a year (my brain tends to feel fried after 6-8 weeks of working so I spread my holidays out to almost replicate term times).
With having Mondays off though, that’s an extra 52 days a year which is just amazing. I love having long weekends as it gives you so much more freedom to actually go away. It also feels so good not having that Monday morning feeling 🤣 I love having an extra day to prepare and sort myself out. Work is a lot more enjoyable when there’s a more even balance of working and living life. How do people survive working five days and having two off?!
Commuting
Being an online tutor means I don’t have to commute, which saves a lot of time and money. My husband and I don’t need a second vehicle, so we just have the van and that’s all we need. It’s also great as we are truly making the most of our house and using every room. As a teacher in a classroom, you might be lucky in that you don’t have to travel very far to get to work, or you may have a journey for 40 minutes plus each way. This adds a lot of time on to an already-busy day as well as the additional expense of fuel and wear and tear on the car.
Behaviour management
Teaching online is certainly unique in terms of behaviour management, as ultimately, the parents are responsible as you are more limited with things you can implement whilst teaching online. Luckily for me, I have never had any real issues with behaviour of my pupils – although sometimes they can get a little distracted by looking at or changing virtual backgrounds.
Holidays
A real benefit of teaching in a school is of course the regular holidays. Every 6-8 weeks you are rewarded with a break and then in summer you obviously get that 6 week stretch of freedom. I used to find that a half term was a godsend and much needed but that it took at least 3 days to unwind and then the last 2 days were spent panicking about being ready for the next half term 🤣 . A two week holiday was much better! Also, we lived in Germany, so any holiday longer than one week, we’d often drive back to the U.K.
Pay
As a teacher, you know the pay you are going to get each month, regardless of holidays, and this is the main thing I miss being self-employed. The income is certainly not stable and can very dramatically from week to week, depending if any of my private online groups or 1:1s are on holiday. I also find that a huge chunk of my time is spent on chasing payments (as I always take payment in advance; I learnt that the hard way!), creating invoices, calculating the costs etc. Not only do I do this for my business, but I also support Ben with the admin side Truependous Tots.
Working in a school and getting your pay spread out so you still get the same pay despite having the holidays is something I really do miss. As a self-employed teacher, I feel like my money is more valuable if that makes sense, as I feel completely responsible for every pound I earn. It’s also really hard when you have a week or two off and you don’t get any salary during that time so you really have to plan and budget more beforehand.
Displays
Creating displays in the classroom can be a real chore, particularly when you have so much to do and it feels like an additional stress. Making sure I changed them regularly and kept them updated was something I did not enjoy when I was a class teacher. A lot of teachers seem to have switched to using more ‘working displays’ where the effort required is slightly less. I have to say, this is not something I miss at all! I love not having to cover the walls in displays that children never use or look at. 🤣
Observations
Being watched by other teachers or senior leaders is something most teachers absolutely dread. In my last school, we would be given a day’s notice to try and eliminate that over-planning and panicky feeling. My head teacher wanted the lesson he watched to be natural and true to daily life. I actually got very used to observations during my time as a class teacher and maths leader. At one time I even had twelve people observing a lesson 😂 . It still did cause me stress though and I would get so nervous beforehand. I’ve also had one Ofsted inspection when I was in my second year of teaching, and I have never felt nerves like that before (except when maybe taking my fifth driving test!). As a tutor, I don’t have formal lesson observations but parents can and do sometimes join their child when they’re having the lesson.
Freedom
Being self-employed gives the sense of freedom that I never fully experienced as a class teacher. It opens you up to opportunities to do other things too. For example, later this year I will start my level 5 dyslexia course so I can be an accredited dyslexia tutor. You can also choose exactly what you want to teach and how your week will run.
Having this freedom and working from home also means we can take on other responsibilities. We have the most fabulous additional ‘job’ which my husband and I started in October 2021 where we look after two teenage international students in their holidays. They attend a local boarding school so come to us when they don’t have the time to be able to go back to Hong Kong.
Marketing
Marketing is a huge part of being self-employed that some people may not consider beforehand. It actually takes up a huge chunk of time, especially if you want to use several different platforms. I find Facebook and Instagram are fantastic to use for marketing. Facebook gives me a lot more business than instagram, but as they are both interconnected, it’s no more effort to use instagram too. I also waited over 1.5 years before getting my own website, as to start with, I made myself a free website on Google Sites. This is something I would recommend to people thinking about starting their own tutoring business. It’s very easy to use and the skills you gain through making a Google site are transferable. Now that I have my WordPress site, I am able to manage this and update it frequently with the skills I learnt.
I would say, don’t underestimate how much time you have to put into a website! I had no idea what SEO even meant a few months ago and now it takes up like 10% of my life haha! Read my blog Designing My Website for more about this.
Anything to add?
There we have it! If you can think of any other pros or cons, feel free to send me a message.
Thank you to Twinkl for featuring my blog in their article!
