For us, that challenge has been our son’s cancer treatment and subsequent bone marrow transplant. For over a year, his immune system has been compromised, meaning months in hospital or at home isolation and a slow, careful recovery at home.

When a traditional classroom setting is suddenly off-limits, the pressure to maintain normalcy and prevent huge educational gaps feels immense. I remember looking at his untouched book bag and feeling a knot of panic: How is he going to keep up?

That’s when we discovered the true, life-changing benefits of online learning with the right tutor.

This isn’t just about homework or academic success; it’s about providing a safe, consistent lifeline to quality education when everything else is chaotic. It’s about giving children back a sense of purpose and confidence when their world has shrunk to a hospital room.

We found our educational superhero in Karen Lander, The Top Cat Tutor, and her one-to-one online sessions have been the consistent highlight of Toby’s recovery journey. If your child’s learning has been disrupted by long-term illness, medical needs, or anxiety, here is why online tutoring services, especially with someone as supportive as Karen, are the practical solution your family deserves.

This is a guest post written by Nikki Knight, the parent of a Top Cat Tutor tutee. Her son was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2022 when he was 4 years old. He then relapsed 5 months after completing treatment and needed to have a bone marrow transplant. Nikki blogs about her family’s experiences at www.unicornsdinosaursandme.com.

Learning from the Hospital Bed: The Ultimate Flexibility

The first and most critical advantage for families like ours is location independence and flexibility. When your child’s health dictates their schedule, education has to follow suit. We’ve logged into sessions with Karen at three different hospitals in three different counties, at home, at a grandparents’ house, and at a Young Lives V Cancer home from home. All you need is a laptop or tablet, along with a stable internet connection.

This flexibility meant that there was more consistency, and it was easy to fit in with busy schedules. In our case, our son was not able to attend school, but wasn’t in the hospital all the time. At first, he was in the hospital and was having teachers see him there, but then he was discharged to a home from home. Here, he did have a few lessons when we went back to the hospital for appointments or for visits to the schoolroom. After that, he was at home for a couple of months, where there was no hospital education. After that, he went back to the hospital, but this time it was a completely different hospital that he’d never been to before. After 6 weeks there, he was discharged back to the original for an additional 8 weeks. At both hospitals, he was having some hospital schooling. After discharge, we finally went back home, where hospital teachers came out to see him. Throughout all of this, he has seen a conveyor belt of different teachers with different styles who all needed time to get to know him. The one constant has been Karen.

Why Online Tuition is Crucial for Immune-Compromised Kids

Let’s talk about germs. When a child, especially one post-transplant like my son, has a severely compromised immune system, the traditional classroom setting is simply too dangerous. Online tuition immediately solves this safety risk.

It allows him to learn from the safest environment possible—his hospital room or his quiet, sterilised space at home. We didn’t have to worry about the winter colds or the hundred new germs he’d meet at school.

This removes a massive layer of parental stress. It means he can continue his education with a personalised learning experience but without the physical or emotional risk, ensuring continuity and consistency.

The Ability to Go at Your Child’s Own Pace (Even After a Rough Night)

Hospital life is dictated by machines, check-ups, and energy levels that swing wildly day to day. A scheduled school day is impossible. This is where Top Cat Tutor shines.

Karen designs her lessons to be incredibly bespoke. If he had a bad night or if the doctors just finished a check-up and he’s tired, we simply tell Karen. She immediately adapts the lesson plan to the student’s specific needs, perhaps focusing on a short, engaging game instead of a long writing task.

The power to set his own pace and reschedule appointments with minimal fuss means learning is never another source of exhaustion or stress. It is a genuine, therapeutic distraction.

The Top 5 Reasons Top Cat Tutor is a Lifeline for Medically Homebound Kids

When searching for one-on-one tutoring, you need someone who understands that missed school days are about more than missed lessons—they’re about emotional fallout, anxiety, and learning gaps. Here’s why Karen’s approach works brilliantly for children with medical or other special needs:

1. Bespoke, Personalised Learning

Karen’s approach is Bespoke 1:2:1 Online Tuition. She doesn’t use a one-size-fits-all programme. She actively works to fill the specific knowledge gaps left by long absences, ensuring the curriculum directly addresses the child’s educational needs, whether it’s reinforcing phonics or catching up on multiplication methods. As she is such a good tutor and she is not bound by the traditional education framework, she can tailor her online lessons to suit the learning style and interests of each individual child.

2. Building Confidence, Not Pressure

For a child who feels “behind,” the thought of returning to a competitive classroom can be terrifying. Karen creates a safe, low-pressure environment where children feel secure enough to ask questions. This focus on building confidence is just as important as academic progress.

3. The Teacher-Parent-Tutor Connection

Karen is an experienced and qualified primary teacher. This expertise means she understands the National Curriculum (although she is not bound by it) and can communicate effectively with the school to keep them in the loop. But more importantly, she communicates brilliantly with us, the parents, providing clear monthly reports that keep us up to date with his progress without adding to our burden.

4. A Sense of Normalcy and Routine

In the midst of medical chaos—endless tests, scans, and treatments—the structured, familiar face of Karen on the screen provides a comforting routine. For 30 minutes, he is just a student working on a topic he loves while practising his key English and Maths skills (without even realising it), not a patient. This small dose of normalcy is invaluable for his emotional well-being and our family’s morale.

5. Support for Additional Needs

We know that long-term illness, medication, and the sheer trauma of treatment can lead to concentration difficulties or anxiety. Karen is especially experienced at supporting the child’s needs with unique learning styles, including those with anxiety or neurodivergence. This compassionate, informed approach ensures that the tuition works with the challenges children are facing, not against them.

Practical Tips for Maximising the Benefits of Online Tuition

If you’re ready to start the online education journey, whether it’s with The Top Cat Tutor or online teachers, here are my top, practical tips for making the logistics work during a health crisis:

1. Prioritise Comfort Over Classroom: Don’t stress about a perfect desk setup. If your child is comfortable on the sofa, propped up in bed, or nestled in their favourite hospital chair, that is the perfect learning environment.
2. Communicate Everything (Seriously): Be honest with your tutor about your child’s energy levels that day. If he is exhausted from a procedure, we let Karen know, and she turns the session into a lighter, review-based check-in. This flexibility is one of the core benefits of online tuition.
3. Use it as a Parent Break: Hospital life is relentless. While he is safely engaged with Karen for half an hour, I can use that time to grab a coffee, make a private phone call, or just take a much-needed breath. It’s a structured, guilt-free break you desperately need (and deserve).
4. Embrace the Technology: Ensure the Zoom link is ready five minutes early. If your child struggles with fine motor skills or tiredness, having the tutor use interactive tools like virtual whiteboards, screen sharing or different types of virtual visual aids to allow them to drag-and-drop answers or annotate on screen makes a huge difference.

A Supportive Bridge Back to Learning

When we first faced our son’s long school absence, I felt entirely alone, worried that his academic future was slipping away. But online teaching and the patient, expert support from Karen at Top Cat Tutorhas provided a sturdy bridge.

It’s more than education; it’s a therapeutic and supportive environment. It’s a constant reminder to your child that they are capable, they are seen, and that their learning journey continues, no matter where they are or how they feel that day.

If your family is navigating long-term illness or school absence, I wholeheartedly recommend exploring online classes to find that crucial support that respects your unique situation.

Your Turn!

Has your family used online tutoring platforms during a difficult time? What was the biggest benefit you noticed in your child’s learning or confidence? Share your experience in the comments below—it helps all of us know we’re not alone!

The post The Benefits of Online Tuition: Our Lifeboat for Hospital Stays appeared first on Karen Lander - The Top Cat Tutor.

There’s something similar in the fine art world. Sculpture is at the pinnacle and is regarded by The Establishment as the highest form of art, the most important and valuable. At the very bottom are things like pottery, knitting and basketry – derogatorily named “craft” by The Establishment – not even worthy of being recognised as art. Landscape used to be considered a much lowlier artform than portraiture (not anymore thanks to JMW Turner).

The Tutor Subject/Age Hierarchy

Non exam-based tuition for primary children is the pottery and basket weaving of tuition, whereas A Level or elite private school exam prep is the sculpture.

Can we please take a moment to reflect how utterly ridiculous (and discriminatory) this is, and how it creates a glass ceiling for what tutors feel they can charge?

And yes, it annoys me because according to this hierarchy, I’m right at the bottom. Which is, to be frank, an insult!

Research is clear that THE most important stage in a child’s learning is the early and primary years. According to this logic, I should be at the top of the hierarchy. However, because working with young children is so infused with patriarchal beliefs that it is menial women’s work (I write more about this here), it is seen as just that. Menial, easy, not important, anyone can tutor primary, helping them become secure with the key foundations for all future learning (reading, writing, maths) is not as important as passing an exam, especially an exam for a top private school or university.

I’m not saying we all hold this belief dear to our hearts, I just think it’s become so conditioned into us that we don’t even notice or question it.

However, I have noticed it and questioned it.

If No Hierarchy – What?

I don’t believe it would be logical to switch the hierarchy so what I tutor was now at the top. Hierarchies don’t help anyone. They keep large groups of people small and suppressed while a minority get the riches.

I believe that ALL learning is equally valid and important, and the abilities needed to tutor someone in learning that thing are equally skillful – it’s just that the skills needed are different.

The skills needed to help a child pass the 11+ are different to those needed to teach someone to play the piano for pleasure, but the tutors are JUST as skilled in helping that person with their EQUALLY valid learning.

I decided to throw this outdated, patriarchal, and elitist nonsense in the bin and start charging according to my qualifications (I have lots of them), skills (I have lots of them) and experience (I have lots of it).

It works for me and it can work for you, and together we can move the tuition industry into the twenty-first century and make it be valued as the highly skilled profession that it is (or should be). That ALL learning is valid and important and the skills needed to help someone with that require training, development and nuance.

I’ve finished recording the videos for my course 10 Steps to Changing How You Charge and once I’ve worked out the tech (and, ironically, what to charge!) it will be available so you too charge appropriately for the highly skilled, top quality work you do, based on your qualifications, skills and experience, not what or who you tutor.

Sign up to my newsletter and/or join my free Facebook Group to be first to find out when it’s available.

The post Charging based on who and what you tutor is a problem. Here’s why. appeared first on Karen Lander - The Top Cat Tutor.

Where does undervaluing of education come from?

As with everything, to understand it we have to look at the history (my favourite subject!)  Let’s go back to the late nineteenth century when schooling became compulsory for children aged 5-13. 

When elementary education became compulsory in 1880, and free in 1892 to educate “the masses”, the teaching profession as we know it today came into existence. 

Prior to this time, children who went to school, or received an education via a private tutor, were from families who could afford to pay for their child’s education.  I say children, I mean boys.  Middle- and upper-class families who paid to educate their daughters were rare, and even if girls did receive an education, it was often very restricted compared to their brothers’. The teachers/tutors they would have had were mostly (if not exclusively) men.  Because education was elite.  It wasn’t available to everyone.  It wasn’t about masses of children, but developing the select few.

Working class families needed income and children were sent out to earn their keep from a young age.  School was not part of their world.

Unlike other professions developing at the time as a result of the Industrial Revolution, such as medicine and the law, which came with high status and a high salary to match because they dealt with important things like life and death and dealing with criminals, which were only open to men (women were unable to attend university to train in these professions), teaching was not accorded the same status.

Why?  Because it was working with children.  And working-class children at that.  Children = women’s work.  Women’s work = caring and menial – less important than the life and death, saving society from criminals work of the men. Women’s work = we don’t need to pay them as much as the men.  The younger the children, the more menial the work is perceived to be.  Of course, there were male teachers too, but because teaching was an option for women, it was afforded a lower social status. 

And we are still living under the consequences of this patriarchal belief system 130+ years later. 

How this impacts what tutors charge today

Many, if not most tutors today come from a teaching background.  According to government research (which I normally take with a big pinch of salt, but it seems about right in this case) 75.5% of teachers in the UK are female (even higher in primary schools).  However, only 38% of headteachers in state secondary schools are female.  Women are at the chalkface; men are in positions of power.

Following these statistics through to their logical conclusion, a large proportion of private tutors will be female. 

We come into tuition from a profession which is chronically underfunded, which has one of the highest rates of unpaid overtime, who work some of the longest hours for some of the worst pay in any OECD country (www.neu.org.uk), where “doing it for the children” is used to justify overwork and underpay in the form of toxic positivity.

This becomes ingrained into us.  It is normal.  It is how it is.  It comes with the job.  We stop even noticing that we are undercharging and working for free because it is so normal to us it is practically invisible.

We also think we can’t charge as much as other service providers because “it’s for children”.  We are a caring profession.  If you charge well you stop being caring. You are greedy, cruel and unkind.

Or so we are conditioned to think.

Why what we think about what we “should” charge is nonsense.

It’s nonsense, btw.  I charge well (compared to most tutors).  It doesn’t make me cruel or heartless or greedy.  The amount I care is not reduced by how much I charge. In fact, I am able to help more vulnerable children and support charities, organisations and ethical businesses as a result of charging well for my service, because now I can afford to.  If anything, charging well has enabled me to show I care more, not less.

It’s time to challenge this chronic undervaluing (in all senses of the word) of caring professions such as tuition.  As educators, we know how vital education is.  Any problem society faces, from obesity to climate change, the key to making things better is always education.  Education is the key to moving out of poverty, better physical and mental health, financial security…  The list goes on about how and why education is absolutely fundamental to society.  It is as important as the life and death work of doctors, and the law and order of lawyers and barristers.

Yet because education is about children, and a predominantly female workforce, and those “menial”, wishy-washy, “feminine” traits of caring and nurturing young minds, it is not valued by the holders of power (the patriarchy).  This trickles down to society; insidiously, subtly over many years.  It is so ingrained it becomes deeply embedded in our beliefs about our own value.

Teaching is not something anyone can do.  It requires training, deep understanding of how people learn, and skill in applying this appropriately.  It is a very highly skilled job. 

How to start shifting your mindset around charging for tuition

1. Charge appropriately for your qualifications, skill and experience. If you have undertaken training to develop your practise and skills, you have invested in yourself.  This needs to be reflected in your price.  Charge appropriately for your qualifications, skill and experience.  The more qualified, skilled and experienced you are, the higher your fees. It has nothing to do with where you live, what age or subject you teach, or what gender you identify as. Charge appropriately for your qualifications, skill and experience and this starts to raise us, and our profession, up.
2. Recognise that you are worthy and deserve to be paid appropriately for your service. I tutor because I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of education and love supporting children in their learning – giving them opportunities and a brighter future.  But not at the expense of my wellbeing – physical, mental and financial.  I can’t support them properly if my needs are not being met.  It’s basic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but the system only wants us to apply it “to the children”. 

Just because the service we provide is for children, it doesn’t mean we should charge less than for services for adults. This comes from the toxic positivity of “doing it for the children”.  What this phrase actually means is, “do everything you can for the children, at all costs to yourself.  The child is more important than you in every way.”  This is not true and dangerous.  The most important person in a classroom?  A qualified teacher. 

Charging well and being caring are not mutually exclusive

Caring professions are essential (as the pandemic and recent strike action highlights), and women are drawn to them, yet because of the patriarchal conditioning around this type of work which really took hold during the Industrial Revolution, women continue to be undervalued and receive lower pay.

And when we become tutors, either self-employed or via an agency, we don’t appear to be questioning the chronically low hourly rates, compared to other professions which require equally qualified and highly-skilled people to do them well; or the amount of work we do for free through the normality of charging by the hour (read why I don’t charge by the hour here). By continuing to work in this way we continually undervalue ourselves and our profession, perpetuating the problem.

By charging well for my service I’m saying:

This service is important

This service delivers life-changing transformations

This service requires a high level of training and skill

I deserve to be paid well for my qualifications, skill and experience, regardless of my gender.

I’m going to finish with a quote from Phillipa Perry, psychotherapist and author, taken from the podcast “The Kindness Economy by Mary Portas”:

“It’s culturally implanted that we [women] do the caring and we need to change the culture… I think caring should be as valued as a trait, in men, and in women, as much as being able to add up is.”

For more information about mindset for tutors, follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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