The first lesson with a new student is the most important and the hardest to prepare. You don’t know the student yet, you don’t know how they think, you don’t know how much they have really understood and how much they have only learned by heart. The student, for their part, and often the parents, is deciding whether this tutor is worth the time. Everything is decided in one hour.
The good news is that it can be prepared. A first lesson that works always has the same shape: understand, do, hand back. Below you’ll find a five-stage structure, with approximate timings for an hour and the most common mistakes of people starting out.
Before the lesson: three things to ask
An improvised first lesson feels like a casual tryout and ends up as a generic review. Before you log on, ask, even just in a message:
- What they are studying right now (the topic, not the subject in general) and by when they have their next test or exam.
- The most recent material: the last marked test, an exercise that doesn’t work out for them, the pages of the book they have to prepare. Photos of the notebook are perfectly fine.
- How they feel about the subject: struggling for a short time or for years, demotivated or just behind. A one-line answer changes the whole tone of the lesson.
The last marked test is the most useful document you can have: it shows you where they go wrong, not just how much. A calculation error and a set-up error call for different interventions.
If the student sends nothing, the lesson starts anyway, but from point 2 below, in a longer form.
The structure in five stages
1. Introduction and goal (5 minutes)
Introduce yourself in two sentences, without listing your CV. Then ask the question that orients everything: “What would you like to be different a month from now?” The answer is your goal: passing the exam, no longer feeling anxious in class, finally understanding equations. If the student is a minor and a parent is present, the question applies to both, and the answers often don’t match: that is valuable information.
Explain in a few words how the lesson works: “I’ll see how you reason, then we’ll work on it, and at the end I’ll leave you a summary”. People who know what will happen relax.
2. Diagnosis with a real exercise (10-15 minutes)
Don’t ask “what isn’t clear to you”: students almost always answer “everything” or “nothing”. Give them an exercise on the topic they are currently doing, at a level slightly below the test, and watch them as they solve it aloud.
Observe and take notes, without interrupting straight away:
- where they stop, and whether they restart on their own;
- whether they know why a step works or apply it from memory;
- what kind of mistake they make: calculation, reading the text, concept;
- how long it takes them.
Interrupting too early is the most frequent mistake of the novice tutor: the temptation to correct at once takes away the most useful part of the diagnosis.
3. Explain one point, well (20-25 minutes)
From everything you have seen, choose one point to work on in that hour: the most important for the next test, not the most interesting for you. On that point, go in depth:
- explain with a simple example, not with the definition;
- have the student repeat it in their own words;
- give them a similar exercise to do with you beside them;
- then a harder exercise, on their own, while you stay silent.
It is the sequence explanation, example, guided exercise, independent exercise. The last step is the one that shows whether they have really understood. If they can’t manage it alone, the point is not closed: that’s fine, you note it down and pick it up at the next lesson. Closing a topic in appearance only, so as not to disappoint, is worse than honestly saying “we’ll come back to this”.
Use the shared whiteboard and write everything, even what you say aloud: the student must be able to reread it. And let them write in their own notebook while you write on your screen: people who write learn better than people who watch.
4. The recap (5-10 minutes)
The last minutes are what separates a useful lesson from a pleasant one. Summarise:
- what you did (one point, two examples);
- what is still fragile (with a concrete example);
- what they must do before next time (two or three exercises, no more).
If you can, send a PDF at the end of the lesson with the whiteboard and the assigned exercises. It is the document the student will reread, and the one parents will see. It is usually also the most concrete proof that the tutor has done a good job.
5. The plan: the part almost nobody does (5 minutes)
Close with a proposal for a path, even a short one: “For the test on the 20th I’d say three lessons: the first on quadratic equations, the second on systems, the third a practice paper. Does that work for you?” You don’t need a ten-page written plan: you need the student and the family to understand where you are going and when it ends.
A visible plan helps them decide calmly whether to continue, because the family is judging something concrete instead of an impression. It works both ways: if the plan doesn’t convince you, or if you realise the level is not yours, this is the moment to say so.
The most common mistakes in the first lesson
- Talking too much. If you talk more than the student for more than half the lesson, you are giving a lecture, not a lesson.
- Trying to do too much. Five topics in an hour is zero topics. One done well is already a good lesson.
- Judging out loud. “You should have known this in Year 2” is a sentence that shuts a student down for good. Take note and use it to choose what to do, not to comment.
- Leaving nothing in writing. A lesson that exists only in the student’s memory vanishes in two days.
- Not asking how it went. Always close with: “Was it useful? What would you change next time?” It is free feedback and shows that you care.
How to adapt the structure
- Younger students (middle school, first years of high school): more short exercises, less continuous explanation, a break halfway. A parent can stay in the background, but let the child be the one to answer.
- University students: the diagnosis can be a past exam question; the lesson goes straight to the points the exam requires.
- Humanities and languages: the diagnosis can be a translation, a text analysis or a short oral presentation; the independent exercise is a short piece of writing to correct together. The structure (understand, do, hand back) is the same; the material changes. You can see how these are presented on the pages for humanities, Latin and English.
- Maths and physics: the whiteboard is everything. Write the steps, even the trivial ones. For the reference pages see maths and physics.
After the first lesson
By the evening, send a short message: thanks, the PDF and the date of the next lesson if already set. Note down for yourself three things: where they go wrong most, what got them unstuck, what to propose next. These are the notes you prepare lesson number two with. If writing them feels like a waste of time, try it for a week: the preparation for the second lesson halves.
If you’d like to see how we set up the work with students, there is the page on the method; if instead you are thinking of teaching with us, the become a tutor page explains how the collaboration works. For the choices that come before all this, how to start giving tutoring lessons online; for building trust when you don’t have a portfolio yet, getting chosen as a tutor without a portfolio.
