What to Ask a Tutor Before You Book

A tutor will answer a price question in seconds and answer it well, because it is the one thing every tutor expects to be asked. Ask instead whether they hold a current enhanced DBS check, whether anyone has confirmed their identity, and what they have actually delivered for a real student, and the conversation slows down — which is exactly the point. The sequence you use decides what you actually learn. Open with cost and the whole exchange becomes a price comparison, because that is the easiest thing for both sides to talk about, and safety never gets raised. Open with the things that can be checked — identity, background, evidence of results — and price becomes the last, easiest decision, made between people you already trust.

The problem with asking about money first

Cost is the question every tutor is ready for, so conversations default to it. A rate is quick to state and quick to compare across a shortlist, which feels efficient. But a rate says nothing about whether the person is safe around your child, whether the qualification on their profile is genuine, or whether they have ever actually moved a student's grade. Someone can quote a confident, competitive price without ever having been asked to prove anything else about themselves.

Reverse the order and the shortlist gets shorter, not longer. Once you have confirmed identity, background check and qualifications, and seen real evidence of past results, price stops being your only signal and becomes a simple comparison between people you have already vetted. This ordering also closes off a specific trap: a low price with nothing checkable behind it, and a high price for exactly the same reason. Cost alone can't distinguish the two.

Why verification should come before conversation

On most tutoring directories, the profile is the tutor's own account of themselves — a stated qualification, a claimed DBS check, a self-reported history — and a parent has no fast way to check any of it. Tutorwise takes a different approach: every tutor's credibility score is calculated from evidence the platform itself has checked, not from what the tutor has typed into a bio. That's the mechanism behind Credibility as a Service (CaaS) — a verified identity, a current enhanced DBS check, qualifications the platform has actually seen, sessions delivered through genuine bookings, and reviews that can only come from families who really worked with that tutor, rolled into a single score visible before you make contact. How Tutorwise scores tutor credibility covers the full mechanics; what matters here is simpler — a platform that checks before it publishes has effectively pre-answered your first round of questions. You still need to know what it covers, and what it deliberately leaves for you to ask.

Round one: questions with a factual, checkable answer

Four questions belong here. Each has a right answer, and none of them should rest on the tutor's word alone.

Do you have a current enhanced DBS check, and can you show it to me? Ask this plainly — a genuine tutor will not be thrown by it. An enhanced check screens someone against official UK criminal-record and barred-list information for work involving children; what a DBS check actually tells you sets out exactly what it covers and what it does not.

Has your identity actually been verified, or just stated? A background check only proves what it's attached to. If no one has confirmed the person you're speaking to is the person named on the certificate, the certificate is worth less than it looks.

What are your qualifications, and can I see evidence rather than a description? A degree, a teaching credential, or direct familiarity with the exam board and level your child is sitting. Experience and qualification are two separate claims — ask for proof of both, especially the second.

What have you delivered for a real student that I could verify? Push for specifics linked to actual bookings — a subject, a level, a measurable change — not a general claim of success. A platform where outcomes are tied to verified sessions has largely done this checking already; on an open listings site, this is the one worth pressing hardest, because it's also the easiest thing to exaggerate.

Round two: the safety question most parents forget

DBS checks aren't the whole safety picture. How sessions are actually run matters just as much. Ask whether communication and scheduling happen through a platform that keeps a record, rather than a personal phone number exchanged immediately, and — for a younger child — whether a parent or other adult should be present or reachable. A tutor with a clear, unhesitating answer here is describing a habit they already follow, not reciting a policy. A tutor who has never considered the question is worth a follow-up, not an immediate red flag — but it should prompt one.

Online sessions deserve the same level of scrutiny as face-to-face ones, not less. Nothing about a screen lowers the requirement. If anything, confirmed identity and a recorded communication channel matter more when there is no in-person meeting to fall back on for reassurance.

Round three: questions that depend on the subject, level and exam board

Once identity, checks and qualifications are settled, the next useful question isn't generic — it depends on exactly what your child is studying. A vague "are you a good teacher?" invites a vague answer; a subject-specific question forces a real one.

GCSE and A-level sciences (biology, chemistry, physics). Find out which exam board the tutor knows well — AQA, OCR and Edexcel structure papers and required practicals differently, so a tutor who knows the content but not your board's format will be weaker on exam technique. Also ask how they prepare students for the required-practical endorsement, which is assessed separately from the written papers and often under-revised.

GCSE maths. Confirm whether they teach to your child's tier, since Foundation and Higher are different papers with different ceilings, and ask specifically how they approach the non-calculator paper, where marks are usually lost to method rather than understanding.

Modern foreign languages (French, Spanish, German). Vocabulary teaching and speaking-exam preparation are not the same skill. Ask how much spoken practice is built into each session, not just written work — speaking gets the least classroom time and benefits most from one-to-one focus.

English literature. Check whether the tutor knows the exact set texts your child's school uses. GCSE English literature is a closed-book exam that leans heavily on textual memory, so unfamiliarity with the set text is a real handicap, whatever the tutor's general strength.

11+ preparation. Ask which test format the tutor knows — GL Assessment and CEM (now run by Durham University's Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring) use different question styles, and strong preparation for one can transfer poorly to the other.

Any subject at A-level. Ask how they help a student move beyond GCSE-style answers toward the greater independence A-level marking rewards. That's a distinct skill from teaching content, and a tutor who has only worked at GCSE may not have built it.

These questions add to round one, not instead of it — a tutor can be a strong subject match and still fail the DBS question, so always ask both.

Round four: fit, which no score can measure

With the facts and the subject detail confirmed, what's left is judgement — you'll form it from how the tutor talks, not from a document.

What do you do when a child is stuck? This question tells you more than almost any other. Listen for an actual method — isolating the specific gap, re-explaining a different way, breaking the problem into steps — rather than "I'm patient," which is a personality trait, not a teaching approach.

How will you update me, including when progress stalls? You want to know what a difficult week looks like and how you'll find out about it. A tutor who only ever reports good news is managing your expectations, not teaching your child.

What are you not able to help with? Ask this one last. A tutor who admits a genuine limit — a level they don't teach, a gap outside their strength — is showing you the honesty you'll depend on all term. One who claims to handle everything is telling you they won't be straight with you when it matters.

Price, once everything else is settled

By the time cost comes up, you're no longer using it to judge trustworthiness — that's already decided. You're comparing a rate between people you've already vetted, which is a much simpler exercise: matching session lengths, a clear cancellation policy, and a rate that reflects the actual level and exam board rather than a flat subject rate. A cheap tutor with nothing verifiable behind them isn't a saving — you've just shifted the cost of checking their claims onto your own time. An expensive tutor isn't automatically better either, unless the earlier rounds actually back it up.

What this looks like in practice on Tutorwise

Because identity, the DBS check and qualifications are confirmed before a tutor is ever listed — not claimed afterwards on a profile — most of round one is already answered by the time you open a tutor's page. You're confirming what the platform checked, not starting from zero. That leaves your actual conversation free for the subject-specific and fit questions, which are exactly the parts no system can judge for you: how this particular person will work with your particular child, on your particular exam board. A high star rating, by contrast, only tells you a handful of reviewers were satisfied — it says nothing about whether the underlying facts were ever verified, a distinction explored fully in why verified credibility beats a five-star average. If chasing the paperwork yourself isn't something you want to do, starting from tutors whose credibility is already verified handles round one for you, leaving your energy for the questions only a parent can actually judge.

Frequently asked questions

What's the single most important question to ask a tutor? Whether they currently hold an enhanced DBS check and can produce it. It's the one safety question with an unambiguous right answer, and it should come before any discussion of teaching style or price.

Should price come up early or late in the conversation? Late. Raising it first anchors the whole discussion on cost before you've established whether the person is even safe and qualified to be considered. Once trust, safeguarding and subject fit are confirmed, price is a short comparison.

Do I need to ask different questions for different subjects? Yes, for the follow-up round. The identity and safety questions stay fixed, but a science tutor should be asked about exam board and required practicals, a language tutor about spoken practice, and an 11+ tutor about GL versus CEM familiarity — the generic version of the question misses the detail that actually predicts a good match.

What if a tutor avoids answering a verification question? Treat the avoidance as information. A genuine tutor expects to be asked for a DBS check and proof of qualifications and won't be defensive about it. Reluctance is worth weighing as heavily as whatever they do say.

Does a verified credibility score mean I don't need to ask these questions myself? It removes the need to chase the paperwork for the facts it already checks — identity, DBS, qualifications, delivered work. It doesn't replace the safeguarding conversation, the subject-specific follow-up, or the fit questions only a parent can judge.

More in this series

• Red flags parents should watch for when choosing a tutor
• What a tutoring credibility score actually measures
• What evidence should a tutor profile show?