My Child Has a Tutor but Still Isn't Improving. What Should I Do?
The tutor is reliable and polite, you have paid every month, and your child's marks are exactly where they were. This is the most common complaint we hear, and replacing the tutor is often the wrong first move.
Reason 1: nobody found the actual gap
This is the big one.
A child failing HSC Physics is almost never failing all of Physics. It is vectors, or applying calculus to motion, or one chapter from Class 9 that was never understood and everything since has been built on top of it.
A tutor who started at chapter one and is working forwards will reach the real problem some time next year.
What to do: ask the tutor directly — *which specific chapters is my child weak in?* If they cannot name two or three, they have been teaching the syllabus rather than teaching your child. Ask them to spend one session diagnosing, working backwards from the last exam script.
Reason 2: the child listens but never speaks
Sit nearby for twenty minutes of the next session. Count how many times your child talks.
If the hour is the tutor explaining and your child nodding, nothing is being learnt. Understanding an explanation feels identical to being able to reproduce it, and it is not the same thing at all.
What to do: ask the tutor to make your child work problems *during* the session while they watch, rather than explaining and setting homework. The difference in results is dramatic and immediate.
Reason 3: it is an exam-technique problem, not a knowledge problem
Some children know the material and still score badly — they run out of time, misread questions, or write answers that do not earn marks under the board's scheme.
Sign: your child can explain the chapter to you but the marks stay flat.
What to do: this needs past papers under a clock, and marking against the actual scheme. An experienced schoolteacher is usually better at this than a university student.
Reason 4: the tutor is genuinely the wrong fit
Sometimes it really is the tutor — out of their depth in the subject, or unable to hold a teenager's attention.
Signs: they cannot answer your child's questions, sessions drift into chat, or you have raised the same concern twice with nothing changing. Seven signs it is time to change.
Do this before you replace anyone
Have one honest conversation. Say plainly: *the marks have not moved, what do you think is wrong?* A good tutor has been waiting to tell you — often that homework is not being done, or the timetable is too thin for the gap.
Check the hours are enough. Three hours a week to repair two years of missed foundation is not a tutor problem, it is an arithmetic one.
Give a specific target four weeks. *"By the end of the month I want him able to do any vector problem from the last three years' papers."* Vague expectations produce vague teaching.
If four weeks with a clear target changes nothing, then change the tutor — and this time compare candidates properly against the specific problem.
Browse verified tutors by subject and area, or post your tuition describing exactly what is going wrong.