As a tutor myself, I had mixed feelings about the article written by someone else engaged in that dark art (“Behind closed doors: my life as a private tutor”, Feature, 16 August). I could easily trump the stories of odd domestic arrangements, marital difficulties and troubled students but I won’t. Why? Partly because I respect my tuition contracts but mostly because I am not a self-important middle-class twerp who assumes that they can drizzle condescension on all those who fail to match their Olympian standards.
A better topic for consideration would be the pressure on tutors to produce results, regardless of the aptitude, attitude or application in evidence from the students. I am also shocked by the ease with which some parents part with hundreds of pounds a month to scarcely regulated nurseries while haggling with a specialist tutor for the delivery of a set of services that should be priced far higher.
KT O’Connor, Home tutor and former teacher.