Online lessons: what you need

What an online lesson looks like from the sofa

The tutor appears on screen. Your child has an exercise book open and a pen in hand. A phone is propped up on something so the tutor can see the page. That page is the lesson. Everything else in this guide exists to keep it visible and readable.

Most families we teach online have children in Years 9 to 11 working towards GCSE maths or English. Science is the other common subject, though the same setup serves a Year 5 pupil reading aloud and a Year 13 student working through A level past papers. Little of it is expensive. Most homes already own every piece of equipment required, and the part that is usually missing is a stand for the camera phone.

Get the setup right once and it holds for a whole term.

The device: how much computer you actually need

Any laptop built in the last six or seven years will run a video lesson. The call is light work for a modern machine. Four gigabytes of memory is plenty, and nothing needs installing because we run lessons inside the browser. Close the other tabs, plug in the charger if the battery is old, and the hardware side is done.

Screen size is the detail that matters most for maths. Below roughly 11 inches, an algebraic fraction splits across two lines and the pupil loses the thread of it. A 13 inch screen is comfortable. Bigger is better again, but a monitor is not required.

Laptops and tablets

A tablet with a stylus is the strongest option for maths and science, because writing on the shared whiteboard feels close to writing on paper and the tutor sees each line as it is produced rather than two minutes later. A laptop with a separate drawing tablet works the same way if you already own one.

Phones

A phone alone is workable for an English discussion lesson. It is poor for algebra. A whiteboard squeezed onto a 6 inch screen means constant pinching and dragging, and the pupil spends more time framing the work than doing it. Treat a phone as the camera for the page, not as the main device.

The connection: the numbers that matter

Roughly 3 Mbps of upload and 5 Mbps of download carries a clear video call. Most home broadband in Bristol clears that comfortably, even in a terrace house in Redland where the router sits at the front and the lesson happens at the back.

Latency is the figure people ignore and then blame on the tutor. Under about 150 milliseconds, conversation feels natural. Above 250 milliseconds, both parties start talking over each other and the lesson turns into a walkie talkie exchange. You can check upload and download with any free speed test, and many show latency too.

Test at the time your child will actually have the lesson. A connection that streams perfectly at 11am on a Sunday can sag at 7pm on a Tuesday when the rest of the street is streaming television. If the evening figure is poor, move the laptop closer to the router or switch to the 5GHz band. A cable is still the most reliable answer if the furniture allows it.

Keep a phone hotspot as a fallback. Set it up once, before you need it, so nobody is hunting through settings menus while a tutor waits.

Sound matters more than picture

People forgive a slightly soft image. They cannot work with muddy audio. Built in laptop microphones pick up the whole room, including the dishwasher and a sibling practising scales, so a pair of headphones with an inline microphone makes a bigger difference than any camera upgrade.

Watch for echo. If the laptop and the phone are both logged into the same lesson, one must have its speaker and microphone off. Two live audio connections in one room create a delayed double of every word and the tutor will ask you to fix it within the first minute.

Ask for a thirty second sound check at the start. The pupil reads a sentence from their book, the tutor confirms it came through, and then the real work begins. That small ritual prevents the worst version of an online lesson, which is forty minutes of nodding at a frozen face.

Showing written work: the part that decides whether it works

Reading a pupil's handwriting live is where online tuition either succeeds or falls apart. There are two reliable routes and one that should stay a backup.

The phone as a document camera

Prop the phone 20 to 25 centimetres above the page, lens pointing straight down. A stack of books and a mug works. Clamp it if you have a clamp. Light the page from the side rather than from above, because overhead light bounces off the paper and washes out the pencil. Tap the screen to lock focus on the pen nib, and check that the pupil's hand does not cast a shadow over the line they are writing.

Join the lesson twice: laptop for the tutor's face and the whiteboard, phone for the page. Keep audio on the laptop only. This is the setup most of our GCSE maths families settle on and never change.

The stylus and shared whiteboard

For equations and graphs. For circuit diagrams too, writing directly onto the whiteboard is quicker and the tutor keeps a clean record of every step. It suits pupils who are comfortable with a stylus and it removes the shadow problem entirely.

Photographing work afterwards

Where the pupil prefers to work on paper with no camera, they can photograph each page at the end and send it over. It works, but it loses the moment when a tutor would have caught a sign error in real time. Use it as a supplement, not the main channel.

What to have on the desk before the lesson starts

Preparation takes two minutes and saves ten. Set out the exercise book or paper, two working pens and a pencil, a ruler, and a scientific calculator for maths and science. Add a printed copy of the exam board specification for the subject. Our tutors plan around the pupil's own specification, so a page reference the pupil can turn to is worth more than a general revision guide.

For English, have the set text open at the right chapter or act, plus any annotated copy the school uses. For science, a printed periodic table and the equation sheet your child's board supplies are useful for combined and triple students alike. Keep a highlighter within reach for mark scheme work.

Water, not squash, and not next to the keyboard.

Setting up before the first online lesson

1. Run a speed test on the device your child will use, at the time of day the lesson will happen, and note the upload figure.
2. Open the lesson link on that device the day before, so any permission prompt or browser update is handled in advance.
3. Choose the room and the seat. A hard chair at a table beats a bed every time, and a closed door beats an open plan kitchen.
4. Set the camera phone on its stand, join the lesson, and check that a page of handwriting fills enough of the screen to be read.
5. Put the headphones on and record a ten second test of your child reading aloud, then play it back and listen for echo or background noise.
6. Lay out the books and calculator, with the specification to hand, and put every other device on silent and out of reach.

If any of those six steps goes wrong, tell your coordinator before the lesson rather than during it. Sorting a camera angle in advance takes a minute; sorting it while a tutor waits takes ten.

The room, the light and the household

Face a window rather than sit with one behind you. Backlight turns a pupil into a silhouette, and a tutor who cannot see a face cannot tell whether a pause means thinking or a lost thread. An ordinary desk lamp in front of the pupil is enough after dark.

Send siblings elsewhere for the lesson if you can. Not because the work is secret, but because a Year 11 pupil working through a higher tier paper needs to hear the tutor's question and their own answer without a background commentary.

Notifications off is the single biggest upgrade to concentration. A phone that lights up with a group chat every ninety seconds will pull a fifteen year old's attention away from a mark scheme faster than anything a tutor can do.

Where the parent sits

For younger pupils, sitting nearby with a book of your own is sensible and we encourage it. It means you hear how the tutor questions your child, and you pick up the vocabulary the school uses. For Year 10 and Year 11 students, most work better with a parent in the next room rather than at the same table. Being watched while getting something wrong is a reliable way to stop trying.

If you would rather stay in the room, say so when you book. No tutor will mind, and knowing your preference in advance means the lesson is planned for it.

Safeguarding in an online lesson

All of our tutors are DBS checked and qualified, and many are current secondary school teachers. Lessons run on a link we issue, not on a personal account, and neither side records without the other agreeing first. Contact between lessons goes through our office rather than through a tutor's mobile, which keeps the boundary clear for everyone.

You can call the office on +44 117 0451935 or email [email protected] with any question about how a session is run, including who will be teaching your child. If a lesson ever feels wrong to you, that is worth a phone call.

When the connection drops

Most problems are a freeze rather than a failure. Refresh the page once. If that does not fix it, switch the phone to hotspot, or turn the camera off and carry on with audio, which uses far less bandwidth and keeps the lesson moving. A tutor can run a productive session on voice alone with a page of written work in front of the pupil.

If the link will not open at all, phone the office and we will sort it. Keep the exercise book to hand while you do, because a lesson that restarts in the middle of a question loses less ground than one that restarts from the beginning.

What arrives before and after each lesson

Before the lesson, your tutor sends the paper, extract or specification page to have ready, so the first minute is spent on the work rather than finding a document. After the lesson, the pupil photographs anything written on paper and sends it over for marking against the exam board mark scheme, which is where exam technique gets picked apart.

Progress reports for parents set out what was covered and where marks were lost. They also say what to practise before the next session. Read them alongside your child rather than instead of them; the useful part is usually the pattern across three or four lessons rather than any single comment.

A last check before you close the laptop

1. The device is charged or plugged in, and the browser is up to date.
2. The camera shows the pupil's face and, on the second device, the page they are writing on.
3. The headphones work and nothing else in the room is making noise.
4. The book and calculator are on the desk, with the specification.
5. The lesson link opens, and the office number is somewhere you can find it quickly.

One to one tuition online works when the tutor can see the thinking as it happens. That comes down to a steady connection, clear sound and a camera pointed at the page. The rest is habit. If you would like a tutor to check your setup before the first session, or to talk through whether online or a home visit suits your child better, ring +44 117 0451935 or email [email protected] and we will take it from there.