IB Tutoring in India: What Actually Happens in a Good Session

The error log, then an attempt. A good tutor opens by reviewing what went wrong last time and whether it has stopped going wrong, which takes three or four minutes, and then puts a question in front of the student to attempt cold while they watch. What they are watching is how the student starts, because that is where the habit lives. If the first ten minutes are the tutor explaining something new, the session has begun as a second school lesson and the hour is already compromised.

It is a running record of the mistakes one student keeps making, organised by type rather than by date. Entries look like forgets units in the final answer, or writes description when the command term says evaluate, or runs out of time on the last extended response. The tutor reviews it at the start of each session, strikes out patterns that have stopped recurring, and adds new ones at the close. Ask to see it after three weeks. A tutor who keeps everything in their head is not running a method.

By marking the student's own failed answer against the term the question used. Define, describe, explain, evaluate, discuss and to what extent each set a different depth, and a student learns the difference far faster from seeing a paragraph they were proud of earn nothing than from a list of definitions. The tutor names the term, shows what the markscheme expected, and then asks for a second attempt at the same question type. That second attempt is the part that makes it stick.

Yes, with the criteria in place of command terms. In the Middle Years Programme each subject is assessed against four criteria scored out of 8, so home tuition at this stage works on one criterion at a time with the descriptor for the next band up visible on the table. Sessions should be shorter than a DP lesson and should contain more talking out loud. The error log still applies, though for an MYP student it is usually shorter and more about process than content.

Because explanation and marks are only loosely connected in the IB. A student can follow every explanation and still lose marks on structure, command terms, timing or the internal assessment criteria, none of which improve by listening. Ask what proportion of the session your son spends writing. If the honest answer is very little, that is the problem, and it is fixable without changing tutors: ask for half the session to be the student attempting work and the tutor marking it in front of him.

The method is identical, but two parts need deliberate handling. Marking is actually easier online, because a markscheme and the student's answer sit side by side on a shared screen and the session can be saved, which makes the error log almost automatic. Attention is harder, because nobody can see whether the student is attempting the problem or waiting. Good online tutors insist on cameras, have work photographed and shared, and keep silence while the student writes rather than filling it with talk.

No, and in southern India beyond Bengaluru and Chennai it usually improves the match. Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Mysuru and Visakhapatnam have thin local supply for IB subjects, so insisting on a tutor who can travel to your door often means accepting a weaker subject specialist. Online lessons remove that constraint entirely. Given that the marking half of the method runs at least as well on a shared screen, the trade-off almost always favours the better tutor over the closer one.

Roughly half the time at Diploma Programme level, less at MYP, and much less at PYP. That is a rule of thumb rather than a measurement, and it exists because writing is where the marks are earned and where the tutor gets something to read. A session that is ninety per cent explanation gives the tutor nothing to diagnose from. If your child comes out of every lesson with a full notebook of the tutor's working and none of their own, something has gone wrong.

Yes, and the boundary has to be clear. A tutor can read the student's draft with the criteria beside it, ask which sentence does what the descriptor asks for, point out that a conclusion has not engaged with the data, and help plan realistically against school deadlines. A tutor cannot write, rewrite or supply text, because the work must be the student's own and the school authenticates it. Your school's supervisor remains the primary guide. Anyone offering to draft the work is a reason to stop.

Structure and a surface. Insist that each home session opens with the error log and contains a timed attempt, and ask the tutor to leave one written task at the end. Set up a table where a past paper, a markscheme and an answer can sit side by side, because a lesson held on a sofa becomes a conversation almost automatically. If a parent is in the house but not in the room, most students settle within two sessions. For a DP2 student, presence in the room usually makes it worse.

The structure is the same and the depth is not. Higher Level carries 240 recommended teaching hours against 150 at Standard Level, and in the sciences HL adds Additional Higher Level content on top of a shared assessment structure. So an HL session spends more time on extended response and on the harder end of data analysis, and less on basic recall. The error log tends to be longer too, because there is more surface area for a habit to go wrong on.

A term, ideally, and never during mock week itself. Each school sets its own DP2 mock dates, usually several months before the May session, and method changes need time to become habit before they are tested under pressure. Starting eight to ten weeks out is workable. Starting the week before means the student is being asked to change how they write while also revising, which reliably produces a worse mock than leaving them alone would have. After mocks is a good moment, because the evidence is fresh.