No, at Thinking Caps, we do not have a minimum enrolment term.

We do ask that parents enrol for one school term – usually 10 weeks. That gives us 10 lessons to make a difference to their learning.

Our commitment to families is that children are happy and learning when they are with us. If at any point you are feeling this is not happening for your child, then we want you to ring us straightaway.

We will work together to find a solution… maybe change the day change the time, change the tutor. If you find that we’re not the right fit, then we are happy for you to leave us and find somebody else.

Our in-school lessons range from $45 to $95, and our after-school lessons are between $50 to $90.

Our in-school lessons are 45 minutes, and our after-school lessons are one hour.

For all new tutors, we do several checks, including reference checks and police vetting.

Our in-school tutors are trained and experienced primary school educators.

Our after-school tutors are local high-school and university students, trained and experienced primary and high school teachers.

As a part of our onboarding process, we train each tutor about our way of doing things. This includes our vision and core values, and our policies and procedures, including our Child Protection Policy and confidentiality requirements.

We recommend that families choose one lesson per week.

Sometimes when students are leading up to exams, they want two or three lessons a week and we will work hard to accommodate this where possible.

As part of our terms and conditions, we allow one catch-up or credit for illness. This is where your child is sick and cannot attend. We will arrange a catch-up lesson, if possible, or we will offer a credit note towards next terms invoice.

If your child is away on a family holiday, we give you a 50% discount if they will be away for 3 weeks or more.

No, we are happy for you to make progress payments.

When you enrol, the system will auto-generate an invoice upfront for the whole term (or what is left of the term if you enrol part-way through).

It is set up to require payment within 7 days.

If you do wish to make progress payments (weekly, fortnightly, half now / half later), we ask that you communicate that with us in writing via email to let us know that you are going to make progress payments.

Please note we do require that the total amount of each invoice is paid in full by the end of the school term, so that we are not following up with you about overdue payments in the school holidays.

Our in-school lessons cover from Year 3 to Year 6.

Our after-school lessons cover from Year 3 up to Year 13.

Yes, we offer virtual lessons. These are the same as our in-person lessons except they are virtual and are conducted through Google Meet.

They are not pre-recorded lessons that you can log into at any time. These are virtual one on one lessons that are face to face – just with a computer screen in between.

We have an electronic whiteboard that we share so the tutor and your child can both see the work.

Your child can email us homework or screenshots of something they need to work on.

When you enrol your child for virtual lessons, we book you in for lessons on the same day, at the same time, and with the same tutor each week, so that means it’s a consistent arrangement.

To get started, we will set up a Google Meet invite. We suggest you save the invite in your calendar and every week at your child’s tutoring time click on the link and we can get started straight away.

Your child can email us any homework or questions they have about their schoolwork.

They can start a Google Doc and share information on that. They can screenshot work that they need help with and present that to the screen within Google Meet.

Contact us about getting lessons set up in school time at your child’s primary school.

No

Yes, we work with students who are not attending school.

We have a relationship with the Northern Health School, so if your child is enrolled with Northern Health School / Te Kura and is working with one of the tutors there, we can work alongside them.