Where is Tuesday's lesson?
Your agency has dozens of tutors and a few hundred students. Each tutor keeps their own calendar: a paper diary, Google Calendar, their phone. Regular lessons are agreed between tutor and parent after the first session, and the office only hears about them when the tutor logs the lesson at the end of the month, or does not.
A parent rings the office asking why the tutor did not come on Tuesday. The office does not know when the lesson was supposed to be. The tutor says it was moved to Wednesday by text, the parent says it was not. Nobody can check.
Why the schedule is scattered
- Tutors arrange times directly with families, and the agency is not always told.
- Each tutor uses a different calendar, and none is shared with the office.
- Changes happen by text and are not recorded anywhere central.
- The office cannot see which tutors have free slots without asking them.
- Lessons that happen are only known when they are logged for payment, weeks later.
The agency is responsible for the relationship with the family, but has less information about lesson times than the tutor or the parent.
What a scattered schedule costs
Missed lessons and disputes about whose fault they were. Parents who feel the agency does not know what is going on. Billing that depends on tutors remembering to log lessons, which means some lessons are never billed and some are billed wrongly. Matching new students is slower, because the office cannot see who has space.
When a tutor leaves suddenly, the agency does not even have a clear list of their students' lesson times to hand over.
The lesson schedule we build
- Every lesson, regular or one-off, is held in one schedule: student, tutor, subject, day, time, length, and in person or online.
- Tutors see their schedule in an app or synced to their own calendar, such as Google Calendar or Outlook, so they do not have to change how they work day to day.
- Parents see their child's upcoming lessons and can request a change or cancellation, which goes to the tutor and the office.
- Changes agreed between tutor and parent are made in the schedule, not by text, so there is one record.
- Reminders go to parents and tutors before each lesson, with the address or online link.
- After each lesson, the tutor confirms it happened, in a tap, and adds a short note if needed. That confirmation feeds billing and tutor pay.
- The office sees every tutor's week, spots free slots for new matches and sees any lesson not confirmed.
| Event | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Regular lesson agreed | Between tutor and parent, office unaware | Added to the shared schedule |
| Time changed | Text message | Change request recorded |
| Lesson happened | Logged at month end, if remembered | Confirmed the same day |
| Free slots | Ask each tutor | Visible in the schedule |
There are good off-the-shelf tutoring platforms, such as TutorCruncher or Teachworks, that do much of this. If one of them fits the way your agency works, we will say so and help you move onto it. We build when your process does not fit their shape or when you need them connected to other systems.
After the change
When the parent rings about Tuesday, the office opens the schedule. The lesson was moved to Wednesday through a change request from the tutor, which the parent approved last week. The office can say so kindly and point to the reminder that went out. Most weeks, nobody needs to ring at all.
At month end, billing uses lessons confirmed on the day. There is nothing to chase.
Is this how your agency runs?
- Tutors keep their own calendars, which you cannot see.
- Lesson changes are arranged by text between tutor and parent.
- You find out about lessons when tutors log them for pay.
- Parents ring the office asking when lessons are.
- You cannot quickly see which tutors have free slots.