The Do's and Don'ts of Homework Setting for Tutors
It can sometimes be hard to know what is an appropriate amount of homework, if any, to set as a tutor, especially if your student is already in full time education and being set homework from school. There are, however, a few pointers that could help you to understand the best practices when it comes to setting homework for students of all ages, and to ensure that everyone will be benefiting from it.
Do: Establish Tutee Expectations Early
When working with a new student, clear communication from day one is essential to setting up a successful learning environment. Aligning expectations around homework and lesson structure early on helps build a strong, collaborative relationship between the tutor, student, and parents — a key principle explored in our guide on How to Get the Most Out of Tuition: A Parent's Guide.
For some clients, weekly homework is a crucial indicator of progress and a helpful window into the topics being covered. For others, a student may already be overwhelmed by school assignments, making extra tasks counterproductive.
Always clarify from the outset whether the client and student expect tasks set:
Weekly (for consistent reinforcement)
Fortnightly (for lighter ongoing practice)
Topic-by-topic (only when specific gaps arise)
Exam-focused (specifically for past papers and revision cycles)
Establishing these boundaries upfront reassures the client, prevents burnout for the student, and gives you clear confidence in managing your workload as a tutor.
Don’t: Set Homework for the Sake Of It
With that in mind, it is important not to set homework purely for the sake of setting homework and hitting a quota. This is for many reasons, but mainly because it stops homework from becoming something of benefit for the student and a tool for improvement, but instead becomes a chore in the same way that it might feel laborious when having it set from school.
If you are asking a student to complete worksheets or do some reading because you feel like you ‘should’, it’s always worth thinking about what the benefit of the homework will be, and how it will affect the overall learning of the student. If you don’t feel like the homework will be actively improving or adding to your student’s academic journey, think about if anything else will be of benefit instead, or speak to the client to let them know that homework will not be set this week.
Homework such as reading a relevant chapter in a book, or even listening to a podcast episode can sometimes be more beneficial than completing a worksheet, depending on where the student is at both in their learning and in the academic year. Ultimately, it is about using your skill and discretion as a tutor to understand what will be the most successful use of your student’s time.
Do: Make Homework Enjoyable!
Ah, the age-old question of whether homework can actually be enjoyable, and if so, what can be done to keep it that way?
One thing you can do is to try and find a connection between the work that you are doing in your lessons with the hobbies and interests of the student, or any interests that you have noticed during the lessons. Sometimes homework can even be as simple as watching a YouTube video that reinforces the learning you have done together already, and is a great way to make the homework not feel like work at all, but an extracurricular activity.
For example, if you are tutoring English Literature, particularly Macbeth, why not ask the student to find two or three of their favourite examples of performance of Macbeth’s ‘Is this a dagger…’ speech? This way, the student can see and hear the text in action, engage with the material through repetition of the language and engaging their critical mind through the act of comparison, and still feel as though they are just ‘watching a video’.
These types of homework tasks can be particularly useful if you know the student already has a lot of homework from school, or if you are still getting to know the student and establishing a working relationship. There will not always be instances where homework can be enjoyable, and these scenarios are unavoidable, but try to make room to get curious with asking yourself ‘how can this be more interesting/exciting/engaging?’.
Don’t: Set Unrealistic Quantities of Work
There can sometimes be a temptation as a tutor to set the work that you want to be completed, rather than the work that can be completed. If you don’t manage to get everything done in the lesson that you envisaged, it might seem easier to set the remainder as independent reading homework for the student to complete in their own time, or to set a larger amount of homework for them so that you don’t fall behind in your own schedule.
However, there are many disadvantages to working in this way, the main one being that the student can feel overwhelmed with the amount of work they have do outside of tutoring sessions, and the work either is done at a standard lower than the student or tutor would hope for, or not done at all. As exams or assessments get closer, it feels like the logical thing to do to increase the amount of homework being set so that more can be covered in lessons.
In some cases there are students who would adapt incredibly well to this, but realistically it should be assessed on a case-by-case basis so that no student feels as though they are floundering or left behind. Instead, as before, think about what would be the best use of the student’s time outside of your sessions together, and try to match that with the expectations that have been established with the client at the beginning of your time together. You may well need to be setting weekly past papers, which the student has (hopefully!) factored into their week already, but as soon as additional work is requested, you may notice that your student begins to struggle to work this into their existing timetable.
The Quick Homework-Setting Checklist For Tutors:
Consult the client: Weekly, fortnightly, or on-demand?
Check the purpose: Is this task actively adding value or just filling time?
Vary the medium: Can a video, podcast, or short reading replace a standard worksheet?
Respect their capacity: Avoid dumping leftover lesson material into homework time.
Conclusion
Ultimately, with the increase in academic pressure on students from a very young age, it is important as a tutor to have an awareness and understanding of the individual needs of your student, as all students will deal with this pressure differently. Homework, if set at all, should be set in a way that is both beneficial to the student’s broader academic journey, as well as being specifically created for the unique learning styles and needs of the student.
After all, the relationship between the tutor and student is one that is entirely focused on meeting the needs of the student on a one-to-one level that can’t be achieved in schools, which should be honoured both in your lessons together and in the work that you are expecting of them outside of them. As long as homework is set with care, thought and with the student’s learning as priority, you can’t really go wrong!
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Blog Post Crafted by Cicely
Cicely works on our Admin Team, and also tutors extensively.
In 2020, Cicely discovered her love of teaching, and has been tutoring English Literature and Drama ever since, as well as running a drama school audition help service with her friend and fellow actor to help prospective drama school students with their audition speeches.
Cicely has had her poetry published in anthologies and online, and in her free time is an avid reader. She loves living by the sea, a good podcast, and taking long walks in the countryside.
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