Choosing tutoring
Questions to ask before booking a tutor
Thirty questions to ask before booking a tutor in Bali, grouped by experience, safeguarding, logistics, pricing and progress reporting, with opening lines you can paste into WhatsApp.
The short answer
A short conversation before booking tells you most of what you need, if you ask the right things. Charm fills silence; specific questions fill gaps.
Use this list as a script for a call or trial session. You do not need all thirty; you need the ones that match your worry.
How to use this list
You do not need all thirty. Pick two or three from each group, and listen less for polished answers than for specific ones. “I would start by reading her last report and testing the foundations the new syllabus assumes” is an answer. “I have a lot of experience with that” is a placeholder.
Keep the answers somewhere you can compare. The tutor comparison worksheet is built for exactly this: one column per candidate, the same questions down the side.
What good answers sound like
The questions matter less than the listening. Three patterns separate a strong answer from a weak one. First, specificity: strong answers name curricula, year groups, topics and situations (“I taught the IGCSE extended paper to a Year 11 student at a school in Canggu last year”), while weak answers stay at the level of adjectives. Second, evidence offered without prompting: a professional mentions references, checks and written terms before you ask, because they have answered these questions many times. Third, honest limits: a tutor who says “that is outside my subjects” or “I would want to see her school reports first” is showing you how they think. A tutor who claims to teach everything to everyone is telling you the opposite.
Note the answers as you go, even in keywords. Two conversations blur into each other within a day, and the comparison is the point of the exercise.
Questions about experience and curriculum
Eight questions that establish whether the tutor knows your child’s actual course, not a neighbouring one.
- Which curricula and year groups have you taught most recently?
- My child follows [IB / Cambridge IGCSE / A-Level / Kurikulum Merdeka]. Which parts of that syllabus have you taught, and to which year groups?
- For exam courses: how do you use past papers and mark schemes in your teaching?
- How do you find out where a new student’s gaps are before you start teaching?
- What would you do in the first three sessions with a student like mine?
- How do you handle a student who understands in class but loses marks in the exam?
- What do you set between sessions, and how is it marked?
- Can you give me two references from recent families or schools I can call?
Questions about safeguarding
These questions are not awkward; they are the job. Any tutor or service working professionally with children has answered them before, and the good ones answer them gladly, because clear safeguarding protects the honest tutor as much as it protects your child. Evasion here is the single strongest signal this list can give you.
- What background check have you completed, and for which country’s system?
- Can I see identity documents and the check, or confirmation from the service that holds them?
- Do you follow a written child-safeguarding policy for in-home sessions? What does it cover?
- Who else will be in the house during sessions, and what are your expectations about supervision?
- If I have a concern about conduct, who do I contact and what happens next?
Questions about logistics and pricing
Get the practical terms in writing before the first session, however informal the arrangement feels. The questions below surface the terms families usually discover too late.
One habit saves most pricing confusion: always ask for the total monthly figure, not the hourly rate. An hourly rate multiplied by sessions, plus travel, minus package discounts, plus any materials fee, is the number your budget actually lives with. Two services quoting the same hourly rate can land a hundred thousand rupiah apart by the end of a month.
- What is your hourly rate, in rupiah, and exactly what does it include: preparation, materials, travel, notes?
- Is travel to our area included, and if not, what does it cost?
- Where do sessions take place, and is online an option when we travel?
- What is your cancellation policy, at what notice, and what does a late cancellation cost?
- Is there a minimum booking, a package requirement, or a contract? How do I stop if it is not working?
- How and when do you invoice, and what payment methods do you accept?
- What happens if you are ill or away: is there a covered replacement, or does the session move?
Questions about progress reporting
Progress you cannot see is progress you are asked to take on trust. These questions establish what you will actually receive.
A note on the honest answer to expect: good reporting is specific and sometimes unflattering. “She now solves two-step equations unaided; fractions are the current block” is progress reporting. “Really improving, lovely to teach” is a review of the atmosphere. Ask for the first kind by name.
- What will I receive after each session, and in what form?
- How often will I get a fuller summary, and what will it measure against?
- How will we agree goals, and will they be written down?
- What will you tell me if progress stalls?
- How do you coordinate with my child’s school, if we want that?
The four lines to send first
Before any of the above, the fastest opening move is four lines in a WhatsApp message. Any professional service can work from these, and the reply you get tells you a great deal about how the rest will go.
- Your child’s age and year group
- School
- Curriculum
- Area
A reply that proposes next steps from those four lines is a service with a process. A reply that quotes a price without asking a question back is a different kind of service.
If you would like to ask us
Every question on this page has an answer on our vetting page or one message away. Our vetting and child safety process is described in writing, and every engagement starts with a complimentary 30-minute discovery call. We reply within one working day.
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WhatsApp +62 858 6969 6869 · info@privatetutoringbali.com · We reply within one working day.
Published by Private Tutoring Bali. Sources and corrections.