IB and IGCSE Private Tuition Held Across Four School Years

No, and an arrangement that asks you to is worth questioning. Book one stage at a time, with the four-year plan written down as an intention rather than a contract. The student in Grade 9 and the student in DP2 are different people with different subjects, and the tutor who suits one may not suit the other. What should be fixed for four years is the review habit, not the booking. Agree the hours for this term, diarise the review, and decide again with evidence in hand.

DP1, in most cases, and it is the year families most often underbuy. Subject choices harden, the Extended Essay and the first Internal Assessments begin, and the working habits formed there are what DP2 runs on. Grade 10 feels more urgent because the Cambridge or Pearson Edexcel series is visible, and it does need a concentrated push before the entered series. But a strong Grade 10 followed by a drifting DP1 is a far more common story than the other way around.

Build the exit into the plan from the first session rather than hoping it happens. Ask the tutor at the start what the student should be able to do unaided by the end of each term, and test that with unseen timed work the tutor has not prepared. Cut the frequency deliberately once a term and watch what happens. Dependence shows up as a student who waits for the session before attempting homework, or who explains a topic only in the tutor's own phrasing.

A short meeting with the tutor, the parent and the student, held at the end of term against outcomes agreed at the start of it. You look at one or two pieces of marked school work, compare them with what was promised, and then make a single decision per subject: raise the hours, hold them, halve them, or stop. The decision goes into the four-year document with a date. Reviews that produce no decision are conversations, and conversations do not change a load curve.

Sometimes, and it is genuinely valuable when it works, because that person holds four years of error logs and knows which topic failed in Grade 9. But it is not the default you should plan for. Higher Level teaching is a different skill from IGCSE teaching, and a tutor who is excellent with a Grade 10 student may have no Diploma Programme experience. Re-verify before DP1 begins, ask about HL specifically, and treat continuity as a benefit rather than an obligation.

Fewer than most families start with. One or two in Grade 9 is usually right, since the year is about habits rather than content coverage. Grade 10 may justify two or three in the term before the entered series, falling back afterwards. DP1 is typically two, chosen from the Higher Level subjects. DP2 should be the narrowest of all, often two subjects and sometimes one, with the remaining time given to timed past papers the student does alone.

Usually yes in Whitefield and along Sarjapur Road, because the local pool is deep enough that a tutor can live within a short run of you. The risk is not the first year but the fourth, when a tutor who was crossing the city willingly in Grade 9 starts rescheduling in DP2. Test the commute early, keep the slot in one consistent window, and plan for at least one subject to move online by DP1. A hybrid week is the usual settlement.

When three things hold together for two consecutive assessments: the student self-corrects without prompting, they hit the target band on unseen timed work, and they can explain their own errors before anyone points them out. Stop then, even if the term has time left on it. You can always restart before mocks. A tutor who raises the subject of stopping before you do is usually the one worth calling back for the next subject on the ladder.

Treat the gap after the Grade 10 series as genuine rest, because it is the only real break in four years. For other holidays, a short block works better than a thinned-out weekly slot: a few concentrated sessions on one topic, then nothing. Families in Koregaon Park and Kalyani Nagar often find tutors more available in holidays and book more than the student needs. Decide the holiday load at the termly review, before the anxiety of an empty week sets in.

It is late for Grades 9 and 10, which are gone, but not for the part that remains. Write the plan backwards from May of DP2 instead: mock dates, coursework deadlines, the subjects still moving, and the ones that should be released. Starting late narrows what is possible, and honest planning means naming that. Two years planned properly beats four years of unplanned weekly sessions, and the termly review works exactly the same way from here.

It means fewer wasted hours and better decisions, which is a different claim. No tutor or platform can promise a particular diploma score, and any four-year offer that implies one deserves scepticism. What a written plan reliably changes is the pattern where families pay for a subject nobody has reviewed in two years, or discover in DP2 that a gap from Grade 9 was never closed. Progress shows first in how a question is approached, then in the marks, usually over a term.