These guidance notes are for professional private tutors that would like to join WISE tutors. Please note that the majority of our clients live in London and they require tutors to come to their homes in London. We also have clients in other parts of the UK and abroad, so we are happy to accept tutors from other parts of the UK. We do not accept non-UK based tutors.
Please ensure that you read every section on this page before completing the online profile and application form.
[accordion openfirst=true tag=h7][accordion-item title=”Eligibility criteria”]
Before you begin the application process, please check that you meet our eligibility criteria:
- You must be able to provide home tuition if you live in London. If you live in another part of the UK, you must be willing to provide online tuition.
- You must have a degree and you must have achieved a minimum of a 2:2 degree classification.
- You must be eligible to work in the UK. We will require proof of this at the application stage.
- You must have experience of working with young people. This can be in a teaching capacity, tutoring capacity or a mentoring or support role.
- You must have a current ENHANCED DBS certificate that is less than 3 years old. An Enhanced DBS is different from a standard DBS. Please check this carefully before you proceed. If you don’t have one, please scroll down below as we may be able to arrange this for you. [/accordion-item]
[accordion-item title=”About Us”]
We are a medium sized tuition agency based in London and we work with a number of clients within the UK and internationally. Our office is in Croydon but we work with self-employed private tutors and match them with families throughout London.
Our goal is to build a reputable agency of highly qualified professional tutors. For this reason, we only work with tutors that are qualified to a minimum of degree level and we only work with tutors that are able to consistently gain positive feedback from parents and students.
All our private tutors are required to have an Enhanced DBS certificate and all tutors must have some experience of work with young people. [/accordion-item]
[accordion-item title=”Tuition fees”]
Our current rates of tuition is £30 per hour for primary and secondary tuition. A-level tuition is £35 per hour. Fees for each assignment will be published on the job board. Most of our clients are looking for long term tuition so you must be available to tutor on a weekly basis with each client was match you with. [/accordion-item]
[accordion-item title=”What makes us different? The Trust Element”]
WISE tutors was started by former teachers. When we started WISE tutors, we recognised the challenges for private tutors to increase their rates, without having an agency to validate the rates that they charged.
As a private tutor with WISE tutors, we recommend that you use your contacts through WISE tutors to build up your own base of clientele and maintain the higher rate of charge ie. If you are a silver tutor, then charge silver rates to outside clients.
It is typical for parents to ask how much the agency is giving you and it is typical for new and inexperienced tutors to try to find a middle payment ground between themselves and the tutor.
However, this is a major disservice to your professional future as it means that you will find it difficult to go back and charge a higher rate for referrals eg. If your client through WISE tutors is paying £60 per hour and you agree to cut the middle man and accept £40 per hour, you will pretty much need to provide your service at £40 per hour to all of the referrals that come through this client! That’s £20 loss every week and approximately £1000 per year. If your client gives you three referrals, that’s £3000 lost in one year, that definitely adds up over a period of two to three years! [/accordion-item]
[accordion-item title=”Payment Method and Commission”]
At present, tutors collect payment directly from the family and get the timesheets signed by the parent and the at the end of each month, tutors submit a copy of the timesheet along with the commission fee.
The fee must be paid and time sheet must be submitted to WISE tutors on or before the 5th of each month. This means all work done in June must be paid before 5th July.
Please note that our contract is with you as a self-employed tutor, so we will take action if we find that our commission fee is not being declared.
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[accordion-item title=”Tax and National Insurance”]
As a self-employed private tutor, you will be responsible for declaring and paying your own Tax and National insurance. The timesheet is provided to you before you begin any tuition assignment and you are required to sign the time sheet for any payment collected. We are unable to assist with any tax or national insurance enquiries but you may find help on the HMRC website. We provide a time sheet for you to ensure that all work done and payments are recorded and signed for. It is your legal responsibility to submit this to WISE tutors in order to ensure that no cash or payment has been exchanged without proof of payment.
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[accordion-item title=”Using the job board”]
We have a job board with login details for viewing all available jobs and if you want to go ahead with a particular job you will need to let us know so that we can send your profile to the client. If the client chooses to go ahead with you you will receive their full details so that you can begin tuition.
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[accordion-item title=”Your profile”]
We are only able to work with private tutors that can present a professional online profile. This means that they have good grammar and spelling in their profile and they have a professional image. The profile will be viewed by clients when they are selecting a tutor and therefore it is essential that your profile is of a good quality.
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[accordion-item title=”Feedback”]
We collect feedback from clients to monitor the quality of our tutors. This is then added to your online profile. We only work with tutors that are able to maintain positive feedback on their profile. We reserve the right to remove profiles of tutors that continually receive negative feedback or complaints.
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[accordion-item title=”Enhanced DBS checks”]
An Enhanced DBS check is needed for working with young children. This is different from the ‘standard DBS check. If you don’t have an Enhanced DBS check, you will need to get one before joining us. We can process this for a fee of £65, you will need to come to our office in Croydon to show your original documents and it will take approximately 2 to 8 weeks to process this.
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[accordion-item title=”Interview”]
Due to the large number of applications we receive every month, we are unable to conduct face to face or telephone interviews. Instead we ask you to send us a short video introduction.
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[accordion-item title=”Your video interview”]
The video is not used on the website. It is simply a way to introduce yourself. We want a short 1-3 minute video. Your video should answer these simple questions:
1. Who are you? (Name, background, previous work)
2. What subjects and levels do you teach/tutor?
3. Why do you enjoy tutoring or why do you want to become a tutor?
4. Why do you want to tutor with WISE tutors?
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[accordion-item title=”An overview of the application process”]
- You will need to complete the online profile. The information provided will be stored with us until you have passed all stages of the application process.
- We will need a professional image and a short video introduction. The professional image will be added to your profile. The video introduction will not be added to your profile but will be used for shortlisting purposes.
- We will invite you to complete the online registration. If successful with the online profile, photo and video, we will send you our full terms and conditions and invite you to complete the online registration form. It takes about 10-15 minutes to complete. You will need the contact details for 2 references to hand including postal address, telephone number and email addresses. We will send you an update when we have received your documents and references.
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[accordion-item title=”Registered tutors”]
Once you have completed the online profile, sent your photo and video and completed your online registration, we will send you login details to the job board and we will make your profile available online. We will not publish your full name on your online profile. However, your photo will be visible to anyone with the link. If this is something that you are not comfortable with then we would advise you not to proceed with the application.
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[accordion-item title=”Contacting our team”]
If you have any questions, you can contact us by emailing contactus@wisetutors.co.uk. We aim to respond within 24 hours. If you have an urgent enquiry, we are available using the chat system on the bottom of the website. We only have telephone conversations with our premium clients so please be aware of this.
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[accordion-item title=”Opening Hours”]
We are open Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm and we are closed on bank holiday weekends as well as the last two weeks of December and the first two weeks of August.
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