IB Home Tuition in India: How the Weekly Arrangement Works

One session a week per subject is the common starting point, and two only where the evidence supports it. At PYP, one or two short sessions cover everything most children need. Through MYP 1 to 3 a single weekly hour per subject is usually enough, rising in MYP 4 and 5 if one criterion keeps scoring low. In DP1, one a week per subject works until internal assessment drafts arrive. In DP2, Higher Level subjects often move to two from the mock season. More than two a week in a single subject usually means the plan is wrong, not that the student needs more hours.

The plan should exist before session one and should fit on a single page. It names the units the school is covering this term, the school's own assessment and mock dates, the criteria or papers being targeted, the command terms the student misreads, the internal assessment milestones with draft dates, and the week when teaching stops and timed past-paper work begins. It should also say what work will be set between sessions and how it will be checked. If a tutor wants two sessions to get to know the student first, that is fair; if the page still does not exist in week three, ask why.

At the start of the next session, in front of the student, by the tutor. That is the only method that reliably changes behaviour. Work should be small enough to check properly: four questions of a named type, one timed past-paper answer, a paragraph rewritten to a command term. The tutor marks it there, says where the marks were lost, and sets the next piece from what they have just seen. Collecting a notebook and returning it a week later teaches almost nothing. Checking is not the parent's job; your job is to make sure an hour existed in which the work could be done.

Usually yes if the tutor already teaches in that belt, and usually no if they are crossing the city for a single student. Evening traffic between distant parts of Mumbai or Bengaluru can stretch a short trip badly, so a tutor who lives or already teaches near Powai, Whitefield or Sarjapur Road will hold a six or seven o'clock slot far more dependably through the year. Ask at the trial session where their other weekday sessions are. A slot that depends on an empty road will not survive the monsoon or the exam season.

For the first session or two, yes; after that it usually does more harm than good. Sitting in early lets you see how the tutor teaches and whether the student speaks at all. Beyond the first fortnight, a parent in the room tends to produce a quieter student who checks your face before answering, and a tutor who teaches towards you rather than towards the child. Stay within earshot if the student is young. Ask for the written record and the review call instead, because those tell you far more than an hour of watching does.

Agree the rule in week one, before it happens. A workable arrangement usually says that a session cancelled with a day's notice is rescheduled within the same week if a slot exists, and one cancelled an hour before is not. Illness on either side is the obvious exception. Put the reschedule window into the term plan, because the weeks when sessions get missed are exam weeks, project weeks and festival weeks, which are exactly the weeks a student can least afford to lose. Repeated cancellation from either side is a reason to review the match.

Level, subject scarcity, travel and session length, in roughly that order. A Higher Level subject takes more preparation than a Standard Level one, so it costs more to teach. Scarce subjects cost more than common ones. A tutor crossing a city on a weekday evening is pricing that travel in, which is why an equally good tutor in your own locality often works out lower. Longer or twice-weekly sessions change the total rather than the rate. No amounts are published here; ask for the structure in writing before starting, and ask what would change it mid-year.

Take the online tutor for the scarce subject and keep the home slot for the one where local supply is good. This is the normal answer across Gujarat. Satellite, Bodakdev and SG Highway have reasonable coverage for mainstream subjects, while Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and much of Gandhinagar do not, particularly at Higher Level. A hybrid arrangement is often the practical shape: one subject taught at home by somebody nearby, another taught online by a specialist in another city. Waiting several months for a local specialist who may not exist costs the student more than the screen does.

Ask for evidence before changing anything. A month is short, and behaviour shifts before grades do, so the first question is whether the work set is being done and checked. Ask the tutor which criterion or paper section was targeted, what the student produced, and what is still wrong. If the answer is vague, or if the sessions have quietly become homework supervision, that is a planning problem and one conversation can fix it. If the answer is clear and nothing has moved in eight to ten weeks, ask for a different match and say precisely what did not work.

It is the right instinct for a weekly home arrangement and the wrong filter for a scarce subject. Nearby matters, because a tutor who travels ten minutes holds the slot and one who travels an hour eventually does not. But at Higher Level, and in subjects few people teach, the nearest tutor may not teach your actual course. Start with the course and the level, then sort by distance, and use online for the subject where both cannot be satisfied at once. In Delhi NCR and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region the local answer is usually available; elsewhere it often is not.

One binder per subject, kept at home, is enough. Put the unit outline at the front, printed past papers and markschemes behind it, and keep a separate labelled folder for internal assessment drafts so they never travel in the school bag. Printed papers get annotated; papers on a phone get scrolled past. Past papers, markschemes and subject reports come through the school or the IB's official channels, so ask the tutor which two or three to print first rather than printing everything available. The subject reports are worth reading yourself at least once a year.