For the ultimate home tuition environment, parents are commissioning fully equipped science labs for tutor and pupil, according to top-of-the-market tutoring organisation, Tutors International.
Tutors International were recently quoted in The Financial Times [1] as reporting a 10-fold increase in the number of enquiries for private tutoring. Described by the prestigious Good Schools Guide as "the Dom Perignon rather than the Cava end of the market", Tutors International headhunt graduates and teachers to become private tutors for their wealthy clients around the world.
As described in the FT article, "The family wanted three tutors and were building a lab for science lessons," he says. The cost: a cool £500,000.
Adam Caller, who founded the private tutoring organisation in 1999, commented that home schooling used to be counter-cultural, but has now turned a corner in respectability. Where the company used to receive around 30 to 40 enquiries each year, they now get around 300 to 400.
With parents taking their children’s education seriously enough to pay handsomely for private home tuition, it makes sense that they kit out the family home with the right academic equipment.
Private tutors often arrange the use of the local school’s science lab, kitchens or sports equipment, but Mr Caller reports that his company has organised the creation of four home science laboratories to date. Spare rooms and garages are repurposed into small but fully equipped labs, complete with lab benches for tutor and pupil(s), gas supply, lockable cabinets - all the necessary safety regulations are adhered to, and with all the equipment one would expect to find (and often more) in a school science lab.
Mr Caller commented, "It's perfectly possible to teach science, history or any subject without practical work, but it is, of course, so much more enriching if you can add field trips, practical experiments, and hands-on experiential learning into the lessons. Tutors International supports the tutor, the student and the family to provide the very best education possible – whatever that might entail. If the family wants a science lab in their double garage, we’ll arrange that for them."
References:
[1] Emma Jacobs, Home school tutoring turns mainstream, Sept 6, 2013. https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f484a272-0334-11e3-9a46-00144feab7de.html#axzz2fiu2bpsC.
About Tutors International
Tutors International is a worldwide organization providing experienced full-time private tutors to work with children of all ages and nationalities, in a wide variety of situations, including international relocation, after-school support, full-time home tuition, support for AD/HD and dyslexia, home schooling for frequent travellers, and college prep and coaching.
Tutors International was founded by Adam Caller who has tutored students of all ages. He has received specialist training in dyslexia and AD/HD and is very sensitive to children's educational difficulties. He has now turned this expertise to recruiting, training and placing other tutors with HNW and UHNW families around the world. Adam is a member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA).
