A Year 11 chemistry enquiry on a Monday night
A parent fills in your website form: Year 11, GCSE chemistry, AQA, higher tier, in person at home, weekday evenings after six. You have a pool of tutors. Some teach chemistry, some only up to Key Stage 3, some only online. Some live across the city. Some filled their evenings in September.
The owner opens the tutor spreadsheet, filters by subject, scrolls through the notes column, texts three tutors to ask whether they have space, and waits. One replies the next day. One has stopped taking students but is still on the list. By Thursday the parent has booked a tutor from an online platform who replied within the hour.
Why matching lives in the owner's head
- Tutors' subjects and levels are held in a spreadsheet, with exam boards and specialisms in free-text notes.
- Availability changes every week as lessons start and stop, and the spreadsheet is never current.
- Travel areas are described loosely, such as 'north side', rather than by distance or postcode.
- Soft factors, such as which tutors are good with anxious students or students with particular needs, are known only to the owner.
- Checking availability means messaging tutors one by one.
What slow matching costs an agency
Parents looking for a tutor contact several providers at once. The first credible offer usually wins, so a slow match is often a lost student. Good tutors leave when they are not offered enough work, while the owner fills gaps with the tutors they happen to remember. The owner becomes the bottleneck, and the agency cannot grow past what one person can hold in their head.
Poor matches cost too. A tutor who does not know the exam board or cannot really reach the student's area leads to a rematch a few weeks later, and a parent who is already doubting the agency.
The matching we build
- Each tutor has a structured profile: subjects, levels, exam boards, in person or online, the postcode they travel from and how far, and the times they can teach.
- Availability is updated from the lesson schedule itself, so a slot taken by a new student is no longer shown as free.
- New enquiries from your website form are read into the same fields: subject, level, board, format, location and preferred times.
- The matching shortlists tutors who fit on every hard requirement and ranks them on travel distance, spare hours and anything else you weight, such as experience with that board.
- The owner sees the shortlist with the reasons, adds the soft judgement only they have, and picks one.
- The chosen tutor gets a request with the student's details and accepts or declines in one tap. If they decline, the next on the list is asked.
- The parent receives the tutor's profile and a proposed first lesson time.
| Enquiry detail | How matching uses it |
|---|---|
| GCSE chemistry, AQA, higher | Only tutors with that subject, level and board |
| In person, postcode given | Tutors within their stated travel distance |
| Weekday evenings after six | Tutors with a free slot in that window this week |
| Anxious about exams | Owner's note to prefer tutors you have marked as a good fit |
The final choice stays with you. The shortlist saves the searching and the messaging, not the judgement.
Monday night, after
The Year 11 enquiry lands at nine. On Tuesday morning the owner sees four tutors who teach AQA chemistry at higher tier, travel to that postcode and have a free evening slot. She picks the one she knows is good with nervous students. The tutor accepts at lunchtime. By the afternoon the parent has the tutor's profile and a first lesson on Thursday at half six.
When a tutor's evenings fill, they stop appearing in matches without anyone updating a spreadsheet.
Signs your matching is holding you back
- Only the owner can match tutors to students.
- Tutor availability is checked by text message.
- The tutor spreadsheet is out of date.
- Parents wait days to hear about a tutor.
- You lose enquiries to platforms that reply faster.