The problem
Parents paying $53£40€48A$77C$75 a week want to know it's working, so they message asking how their child is getting on. A tutor with 20 families who writes each one a long update twice a month, at 10 minutes each, spends 400 minutes, nearly 7 hours a month, on messages written late at night.
What the AI does
TutorBird's calendar page describes lesson notes for students and parents, private notes for yourself and custom lesson note templates. You fill in a short template at the end of the lesson (what was covered, what went well, homework) and email it to the student and parent in a couple of clicks. Notes also sit in the parent portal, alongside homework students upload for your feedback, so parents can look back instead of asking.
A worked example
A primary and 11+ English tutor in Chelmsford teaches 20 families once a week each and gets regular messages from parents asking for updates.
Before
20 families, 2 long updates a month at 10 minutes: 400 minutes, about 6.7 hours
After
A 2-minute templated note after each lesson: 20 families x 4.3 lessons x 2 minutes = 172 minutes, about 2.9 hours
What it's worth
About $152£114€136A$219C$214 a month of time saved, against $19£14€17A$27C$26 for TutorBird. That's 3.8 hours (400 minus 172 minutes) at an assumed $40£30€36A$58C$56 an hour, and parents get a note every week instead of twice a month.
How to set it up
- Build a lesson note template with three headings: covered today, going well, practice this week.
- Fill it in during the last 2 minutes of each lesson, while it's fresh.
- Email the note to the parent, and to the student if they're old enough.
- Switch on the parent portal so families can read past notes and see homework.
- Keep anything sensitive, such as worries about wellbeing, out of the notes and follow your safeguarding procedure instead.
What goes wrong
- Notes about a child are personal data under UK GDPR. Say in your privacy notice what you record and why, and don't record health or special educational needs details unless you need them and the parent has agreed.
- Templated notes can become box-ticking. Add one specific sentence each time or parents stop reading.
- A safeguarding concern belongs in your safeguarding procedure and a conversation with the right person, not in a lesson note the child may read.