Top Three Tutoring Trends of 2021

Cara Squires, writer

Published at 31/05/2021, Updated on 23/10/2024 , Reading time: 6 min

Top Three Tutoring Trends of 2021 — Photo © Tutoring_Franchise.jpg

Over the past year, with many kids across the country working hard at home, tutoring franchises who figured out how to innovate, update systems, and provide digital lessons were in a good position. As we enter the second half of 2021, what are the top three tutoring trends of the year?

If you’re considering running your own business in 2021, and you think you’d enjoy educating kids, a tutoring franchise investment might be the perfect fit. While franchising requires hard work and effort, the rewards of teaching the younger generation are many and various. Here’s what the sector looks like right now.

What is a tutoring franchise?

A tutoring franchise is a business that operates in the tutoring and education sector. Most tutoring franchises offer tutoring on a wide range of subjects, and might then hire franchisees with specific subject specialisms to ensure a high standard of education provision. Here are some examples of tutoring franchises which are thriving and adapting to new demands in 2021:

Choice Home Tutoring - Choice Home Tutoring provides exceptional one-to-one tuition to students of all ages, mainly in their own homes. Each tutor will specialise in a subject area.
Clara James Tutoring - Clara James Tutoring offers bespoke one-to-one Maths and English tuition, working with children who have learning difficulties.
First Class Learning - First Class Learning offers personalised learning in Maths and English for children of all ages.
Tutor Doctor - Tutor Doctor provides one-to-one supplementary learning across a wide range of subjects to children, teenagers and adults.

The shape of the children’s education sector post-COVID

The children’s education sector has been one of the fastest growing in the UK, especially across the past year. Franchises that have been able to make the switch to online learning have been helping parents across the UK top up their kids’ education while they missed out on time spent in school.

Education has always been valued in the UK but this crisis has heightened the importance of high standards of education. I believe, increasingly, parents will be looking for private tuition resources to help their children. —Ed Hyslop, First Class Learning CEO

Back in 2019, polling on private tuition revealed that 27% of school children between 11 and 16 had received private/home tuition [Sutton Trust]. At the beginning of 2021, 90% of British parents were homeschooling [Office for National Statistics]. As you can imagine, this move will have increased the number of families seeking private tuition, especially with 49% of parents also confessing that they struggled to find the time to support their children’s learning throughout the pandemic.

As kids get back into the swing of things at school, the demand for businesses operating in the tutoring sector is likely to remain high, as many children will be dealing with the long-term impacts of the schooling they’ve missed in the past year, and may need extra support in order to keep up with the curriculum.

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The top three tutoring trends in 2021

1. Online learning

Though the UK is slowly returning to something like normal, and most kids are back at school, the online learning trend for private tutors is likely to continue to be one of the most prominent tutoring trends of 2021. With the help of online learning, children can continue to learn despite unpredictable circumstances and location restrictions. The debate regarding the pros and cons of online schooling has been going on for the past year, and many believe that remote learning will become the norm because:

It’s accessible and expandable, and tutors can teach from anywhere without issue
It’s interactive, and many believe it promotes communication
Lots of learners enjoy it
It’s already becoming more mainstream

The rise of e-learning technology providers is a good indication that remote learning is going to become even more popular. —Investis Digital

2. Microlearning

Many people - both children and adults - have experienced a decline in their attention span since the start of the pandemic. The unpredictable and stressful nature of the last year, many have argued, has massively contributed to a collective inability to focus.

Throughout the pandemic, we have been in a continuous state of flux, with restrictions and measures frequently changing. [...] Prolonged feelings of stress may lead to the overproduction of the hormone cortisol. This can have a negative impact on our ability to think straight and remember pieces of information. —Niels Eék, Remente Co-Founder

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That’s where “microlearning” comes in. Microlearning is a term that many tutoring franchises use to describe a series of short, super-engaging sessions. The term originates from the workplace, and similar programmes described via words like “microtraining”, but it’s now filtering through to education as the need is seen and responded to. It’s believed that microlearning will make the transfer of information to tutees 17% more efficient [Journal of Applied Psychology].

3. Personal learning

Another reason that the tutoring sector looks set to continue to bloom is this: The UK Government has dedicated funding to helping parents and guardians provide personal, one-to-one learning sessions to kids who need to catch up.

£1 billion has been set aside, with £350 million going to providing tutors to the most disadvantaged pupils. The remaining £650 million has been allocated to primary and secondary schools, so that these schools can spend on one-to-one or group tuition for any children they deem to be in need [UK Government].

Extensive trials show that high-quality tuition is a cost-effective way to enable pupils to catch up. Through a collaboration of organisations across the country, our aim is to make this tuition available to tens of thousands of primary and secondary school pupils. Our hope is that it becomes a powerful tool for teachers in the years to come. —Sir Peter Lampl, Education Endowment Foundation Chairman, Sutton Trust Founder and Chairman

Inspire the next generation as a franchisee in the tutoring sector

With tutoring trends painting a clear and positive picture of the sector’s future, there couldn’t be a better time to make an investment. Very few jobs combine the ability to profit with the ability to make a real difference. If you’d like to run a franchise that improves people’s lives, there are many different options out there for you.