Before you pay a tuition deposit

Tuition is bought under time pressure — a term is starting, an exam is coming, a child is struggling now rather than next month. That pressure is why deposits get paid before anyone asks the obvious questions.

Here are four worth the ten minutes.

1. Is the centre registered?

Centres teaching the national syllabus register with the state education department. Ask for the registration and note that it is specific to the premises — a centre with several branches registers each one, so the registration you want is the branch your child will actually attend.

2. Who takes the class — in week six?

This is the question that changes the most and gets asked the least. The teacher at the trial lesson is very often the centre’s strongest, and that is not a trick; it is just how a trial works. But the person in front of the class in week six is the one who matters.

Ask directly: who teaches this class for the term, what is their subject background, and what happens if they leave mid-term. A centre with a stable teaching roster answers immediately.

3. How many in the room?

“Small group” means different things at different price points, and the number moves. Ask what the cap is, not what the current size is, because a class you join at six can be a class of fourteen by mid-term if the cap allows it.

If the answer is a range, ask what happens at the top of the range.

4. What happens to the money if you leave?

Get the fee structure in writing, in full — registration fee, deposit, materials, per-term fees, and what is refundable at what point. Then ask the specific question: if we stop after four weeks, what do we get back?

The answer is often “nothing”, and that is a legitimate policy. It is only a problem when you discover it in week four.

What not to over-weight

A few things people lean on more than they should:

• Results claims. A centre’s published results describe the students it enrolled, which is not a random sample.
• Class photos and testimonials. Real, generally, and not evidence about the class your child would join.
• A packed timetable. More hours is not more learning, particularly for a child already doing a full school day.

The registration, the teacher, the cap and the refund terms are the four facts you can actually verify before you pay. Everything else is a judgement you make after watching a lesson.