What to Look for in an IB Tutor?
Last month, a parent told me their child had been working with an IB tutor for six months. The student still didn’t know what a knowledge question was.
Six months.
This is not rare.
The IB tutoring market has exploded in the last few years, and with it came a wave of people offering IB support who have, at best, a general teaching background and a PDF of the subject guide. At worst, they got a 38 themselves a decade ago and decided that qualifies them.
It doesn’t.
Here’s what actually separates a strong IB tutor from someone who will burn your money and your child’s confidence:
Make sure they’ve taught the course. Not just studied it.
There is a significant difference between knowing a subject and knowing how the IB assesses it. The rubrics are specific. The command terms matter. The way an examiner reads a Paper 2 response is not the same as how a university professor reads an essay. If your tutor has never sat with a markscheme and actually applied it, they are guessing. Confidently, probably. Still guessing.
Make sure they know about the recent changes .
The IB updates syllabi, assessment criteria, and internal assessment guidelines regularly. A tutor working from 2019 materials in 2025 is not tutoring your child. They’re beating around the bush.
Make sure they can explain why something is wrong, not just that it is.
Any competent reader can tell a student their thesis is weak. A good IB tutor can tell them exactly which criterion it fails, why, and what a band 5 response looks like versus a band 3. Specificity is the whole job.
Make sure they’ve actually read the texts, engaged with the prompts, and done the thinking.
For English, TOK,— this matters enormously. A tutor who hasn’t genuinely grappled with the material will teach surface-level strategies that collapse the moment an examiner asks something unexpected.
Make sure they’re honest about what they don’t know. And that they are willing to learn.
The IB is wide. No single tutor is equally strong across every subject and every level. If someone tells you they tutor everything — all sciences, all languages, all humanities, TOK, EE, and IAs — ask more questions. I, for example, haven’t taught English B for a while and do not take on English B students, however, if demand increases I will study and learn English B to better serve my students.
I’ve been teaching IB for over twenty years. I still turn down students when I’m not the right fit.
That, more than anything, is what you’re looking for.