We previously discussed how to know if a student needs a tutor and the benefits of tutoring. However, we lightly touched on whether a student would benefit from tutoring or from teaching, but many asked – what is the real difference?
Many understand the main difference between Teaching and Tutoring to be the class sizes. With the average class size in schools to be 26 (gov.uk, 2025) and most tutoring is one to one, it can be easy to suggest that tutoring will result in better quality of education. However, there are many variables that can affect your child’s progress and these need to be considered when choosing interventions.
What do each do?
Teaching
Teaching often refers to a formal educational setting such as schools where teachers deliver structured content by following a fixed scheme of work. This might be differentiated towards class sets where students are groups based on ability within their year group.
Teachers often must meet curriculum standards, manage classroom behaviour and assess student performance throughout each lesson. Teachers are often certified professionals through educational institutions or government bodies. However, with the national problem on teacher recruitment, more schools are employing teachers without a qualified teacher status (QTS). QTS is a legal requirement for state-funded schools, however academies, free schools and independent schools can employ teachers without it.
Tutoring
Tutoring is usually more personalized and often takes place in a one-to-one or small group settings. Due to working with a smaller group of students, tutors can adapt the learning to focus on specific concepts rather than trying to cover an entire curriculum.
Tutors can adapt the learning to reinforce material taught in class, clarify misconceptions or confusing concepts or offer other learning strategies such as exam technique.
Although most Tutors hold some level of teaching qualification, there’s no formal qualification for tutoring. Parents should ask for a tutor’s level of qualifications to assure subject expertise. As tutors have a more personalized experience with students, good communication skills are essential, but these must match the your child’s individual needs.
How are lessons structured differently?
Teaching is normally very structured and based around a fixed curriculum. Teacher will have some flexibility on the speed of lessons and the level of differentiation, but the topics sometimes resources will be given to them.
They will also be expected to cover the year’s curriculum in the given time which can put pressure on teachers towards the end of the academic year. As lessons are designed to have a shared learning objective for an entire class, individual’s understanding can be missed.
Tutoring is much more adaptable as there’s no fixed curriculum and the lessons are often much more student led. The lessons are often designed to respond to the individual needs of the students. Tutors also have much more control over the pace of each lesson making it ideal to fill in gaps and cover misconceptions.
How do class size impact the learning?
Many understand the main difference between teaching and tutoring being the overall class sizes. As discussed above, the average class size in schools is around 26, whereas most tutoring is one-to-one or small groups of around 3. This should pose two questions of how does this affect a student’s learning? What is best for a student?
Many will answer the second question first, thinking that a smaller class size is always better. However, it’s we need to look at the impact both have on a student and see if this matches the student’s needs.
Most lessons in schools are around 1 hour in length and with the class size averaging 26, this results in teachers not being able to give students much individual time, so understandable, individual needs can sometimes be overlooked. Teachers also need to go at a pace that suits all learning in the room, even though most teachers will make sure students are always challenged, the top end of each group can sometimes be left repeating tasks rather than developing skills. The benefits of group learning are that it encourages teamwork, group discussion and collaboration. Learning with others can often build confidence as students can see the knowledge and skills in line with others. It also allows teachers to develop other skills off topic such as critical thinking, resilience and adaptability with students having to make some compromise towards the teaching style of the class. Also, through collaboration, many higher attaining students will mentor other students in the class and as some might think this is “Students doing the teachers job”, supporting other students in the class will build confidence in their own knowledge and help develop a deeper or different perspective of the topic.
As discussed, there’s many limitations due to class size, but there’s also lots of opportunities if they are given within the classroom. There’s often not a best choice for students between tutoring and teaching but making sure they get the benefits of both during their learning path.
How important is the teaching style?
A key element when looking at the effectiveness of both teaching and tutoring is the relationship between teacher/tutor and student. Many will understand that a student is much more likely to engage in learning if they like their teacher or tutor and this often returns more progress. However, studies show that linking learning styles and making sure that the level of communication match is more critical to boost student attainment.
Developing a good working relationship is key for both teachers and tutors, but it is also key for both to build a good relationship with parents as they are also an important stakeholder in a student’s progress. Teachers will often speak to parents on a yearly basis at a parents evening and might have an additional phone call or some e-mails throughout the year. However, teacher and parent communications are often limited due to teacher’s workload and again class size. However, tutors will often speak to parents more regularly either verbally after a lesson or via e-mail with a level of reporting.
How is feedback given?
Research has shown that feedback is one of the most important factors when looking at student progress and feedback can be very different between teaching and tutoring. Feedback can be very different between different schools and between different tutors, so it’s important for parents to be aware and question the way feedback is given and have access to the feedback themselves. Schools will have a range of feedback methods from written feedback to a score system and the frequency of the feedback can range of weekly to termly and this can be different across all subjects.
The wide range of differences between schools on their feedback policy is mainly down to Ofsted giving schools freedom on how they should give feedback and don’t expect to see any written or verbal feedback but do expect the schools feedback policy to be consistent.
Tutors also do not have to follow and feedback policy, however due to the individualized learning they are able to provide, tutors will often feedback at the end of each session or lesson. This feedback is often verbal to the student and sometimes generalized verbally to parents. Although this verbal feedback is useful to students in the moment, it can be forgotten over time, so research shows regularly reviewing feedback is the most effectively and is easier to achieve if it is written down.
So which is best?
To conclude, we’ve summarized all the information in the table below.
| Feature | Teaching | Tutoring |
|---|---|---|
| Qualifications | Teachers often hold a degree and post graduate qualification and have QTS. | No formal qualification but will often have effective communication and good subject knowledge. |
| Curriculum | Standardized and fixed within the schools. | Personalized and adaptable to individual needs. |
| Relationship | Less personal and depends on the availability of the teacher. | Highly personalized and motivational. |
| Feedback | Often delayed and generalized across a class. | Personalized and targeted to the individual. |
| Effectiveness | Good with active learners and when there’s a positive learning environment | Excellent – especially when looking at master learning and exam preparation. |
| Cost | Often publicly funded and private teaching able through groups and at mathsplus.co.uk | Often private through face-to-face or online lessons which are available at mathsplus.co.uk |
Overall, we should not see teaching and tutoring as competitors, but rather the two complementing each other. Teaching gives students a structed foundation of knowledge and a community of learners to develop their social skills with. While tutoring strengthens those foundations by filling gaps and misconceptions, building confidence and being able to adapt to a student’s individual needs.
The most important element is the relationship between parents, teacher, tutor, and student to build strong communication routes between each and for the student learning style to match the teaching and tutoring style provided.
To find out more about how we teach and tutor our students to make sure they reach success, get in touch by e-mailing succeed@mathsplus.co.uk as we’re all here to help!
About the author
Written by Scott Dyer.
Scott is our lead tutor with over 16 years of experience working in the education sector. Being a qualified SENCo, previous Head of Maths and a lead in Teacher Training, Scott continues to work with school to help improve Maths results by promoting a growth mindset to build more confidence around Maths.
