IB and IGCSE Tutoring: One Method Across Two Assessment Systems

Yes, but only if they can name the difference in how the two are marked. Plenty of tutors have taught both and teach them identically, which is the actual risk. In the trial session, ask the tutor to explain how they would prepare a student for a Cambridge structured question and then for an MYP criterion task. If the two answers sound the same, keep looking. A tutor who says they drill one and coach planning for the other is describing the real distinction.

A mark scheme is a fixed list of creditable points applied to one answer under time. A criterion descriptor is a band of qualities judged across a body of work, often work the student designed themselves. In MYP each subject has four criteria, A to D, each out of 8, totalling 32 before grade boundaries convert it to a 1-7. Practically, one rewards speed and completeness, the other rewards documented reasoning and honest reflection on what went wrong.

Change the method after the final Cambridge or Edexcel paper, not before. Right up to the last exam the target is the mark scheme, and switching early costs marks the student has already earned. The useful window is the gap between the exam series and the start of DP1, when a tutor can introduce what Higher Level actually demands, how 240 recommended teaching hours are spread, and what an exploration or investigation will ask. Two or three sessions in that window save months later.

It can, quietly. Drilling produces a student who answers quickly and writes generically, and generic work sits in the middle bands of a criterion no matter how fast it was produced. The MYP student needs to show a process: the choices made, the evidence gathered, the reflection on what did not work. Ask any prospective tutor to look at one of your child's returned criterion tasks and say which band it is in and what would move it. That answer tells you everything.

A tutor can teach the underlying skill, question the reasoning, and point at a criterion and ask the student to reread their own paragraph against it. A tutor cannot write, rewrite or edit any part of the submission, and neither can a parent. Every IB internal assessment is the student's own work. The school submits it and runs it through similarity checking, and malpractice findings are handled by the IB rather than by the school alone. Any tutor who offers more than this should be declined.

Most families want five to eight in the evening, which is also when traffic is worst, so the practical answer depends on where the tutor lives. In the Mumbai Metropolitan Region a tutor based in Bandra or Juhu can usually hold a Worli or Lower Parel slot; Powai, Thane and Navi Mumbai generally need someone from that side. Pune is easier, with Koregaon Park and Kalyani Nagar forming one cluster and Baner, Balewadi and Aundh another. Book early in the academic year for the better windows.

Somebody responsible should be in the flat, particularly for younger students, but sitting inside the room usually makes things worse. Students self-censor when a parent is listening, and the tutor then cannot see where the confusion really is. A reasonable arrangement is a door left open, a study space in a common area rather than a bedroom, and a short conversation with the tutor at the end of each home visit. That gives you oversight without shutting the student up.

It works well for review, marking and doubt-solving, and less well for building a physical habit. Watching a student write their working out in real time is easier across a table than across a screen. What online does better than anything else is supply: a family in Coimbatore or Bhubaneswar looking for a specific syllabus code will often find nobody locally, and a strong online tutor beats a nearby generalist. Many households run a hybrid week for exactly this reason.

Ask for a written diagnosis before you change anything. A month is enough to see procedural change, such as working being shown and back-page questions being attempted, but not enough to move a grade. If even the procedural change is absent, the likely causes are a wrong diagnosis, too few sessions, or a personality mismatch. Asking for a different match is a normal request and is built into how the platform works. Adding a second subject at that point rarely helps.

Fees are charged by the session and vary with the level, the subject and the city, so Higher Level Physics costs more per hour than Grade 9 support, and metro rates differ from smaller cities. Home tuition costs more than online for the same tutor, because travel time is real time. Nobody can quote you a sensible figure without knowing the board, the level and your locality, and a platform that quotes one before asking is guessing. Ask for the structure, then compare like with like.

Online, usually, and it is a reasonable outcome rather than a compromise. Across southern India beyond Bengaluru and Chennai, families in Kochi, Coimbatore, Mysuru and Visakhapatnam frequently find nobody locally for a particular Diploma subject, and the same holds in Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Ranchi. Where a local tutor exists for the more common subjects, a hybrid week works: home lessons for the subject that needs a person in the room, online for the rare one. Availability depends on who is free at your hour.

A diagnosis, not a lesson. The tutor should read two recent marked scripts, ask the student to attempt a few questions unaided, and watch how the student works rather than test what they know. Content gaps, writing problems and timing problems look identical on a report card and need entirely different treatment. By the end the tutor should be able to tell you which of the three you are dealing with, and what the next four weeks will target. Teaching Chapter 1 from minute five is a bad sign.