Online Tuition and Commute Time: What Families Get Back

Online tuition removes the student's journey to and from the lesson and any travel a parent makes to accompany, drop off or collect them. The amount of time returned to the family depends on the actual arrangement. A student travelling independently and a parent making two return trips have very different commitments.

Face-to-face home tuition also removes the student's journey because the lesson takes place at home. The travel examples here apply when online tuition replaces a lesson the child would otherwise travel to. Use the arrangement your family is considering when calculating the time returned.

The useful comparison is the whole tuition day. Count travel, waiting and preparation separately, then consider what the family can do with the time that becomes available. At DeepThink, our tutors teach on Zoom through screen sharing or a digital whiteboard. Students can follow the explanation and speak with the teacher from home.

Start with the journey you actually make

For a lesson reached from home, the student's travel time is the outward journey plus the return journey. Multiply that total by the number of lessons you are counting.

Suppose each journey takes 20 minutes. A student travelling there and back spends 40 minutes getting to one lesson. Across four lessons, that becomes 160 minutes, or 2 hours 40 minutes. These are example timings, not a Singapore average.

Use different figures if the child goes straight from school, comes from another activity or takes a different route home. The outward and return journeys do not have to be equal. For example, a 15-minute trip from school followed by a 25-minute trip home also totals 40 minutes, but moving the lesson home may change the earlier school-to-home journey too.

For a useful comparison, separate tuition journeys from travel already needed for another activity. This gives you the time returned specifically by learning from home and shows where it fits in the family's day.

The effect of different journey lengths is easy to see:

These figures cover travel. The sections below account separately for waiting, the lesson and preparation at home.

The parent's time needs its own calculation

A parent who accompanies the student and stays nearby makes one outward and one return journey. A parent who drops the child off, returns home, then goes back to collect makes four journeys.

Using the 20-minute example:

The rows are alternatives. They should not be added together. If one parent handles drop-off and another handles collection, record the actual journeys for each person.

Student and parent time also overlap. A 20-minute journey together takes 20 minutes on the clock and uses 20 minutes of each person's time. Adding those into 40 minutes can describe the combined time committed by two people, but it does not mean the family's evening becomes 40 minutes shorter.

For timetable planning, separate columns for each person are usually clearer. That shows whether online tuition changes the child's evening, the parent's working day or both.

Waiting can matter as much as travel

A parent who stays nearby during a 90-minute lesson is away from home for the lesson as well as the journeys. In the example above, that is 130 minutes altogether.

Some of that time may already serve another purpose. A parent might work, read or complete an errand while waiting. Another may need to remain available and find it difficult to begin anything that requires an uninterrupted block of time.

Record waiting separately from travel and describe what you can currently do with it. The benefit of being at home may be the ability to finish a task, supervise another child or prepare dinner. It will differ between families even when their journeys take the same length of time.

It is also useful to note interruptions. Two short collection trips can break up a period that would otherwise be available for work. Removing the trips may create a usable block longer than either individual journey, without changing the total minutes counted.

Compare the whole evening, including home preparation

Here is an illustrative evening for a lesson from 6pm to 7.30pm, with a 20-minute journey each way:

The two blocks of travel become time at home before and after class. The student can eat, take a break or start the next part of the evening when the live lesson ends.

Getting ready for an online class is a short routine to practise: open the lesson, check the sound and put the writing materials on the desk. A parent can help a younger child settle in. Once the child is ready, our tutors lead the explanation, discussion and practice during class.

If switching online removes 40 minutes of travel but adds five minutes of preparation beyond what you already did, the net reduction is 35 minutes for that lesson. Apply the same comparison to your circumstances. Preparation needed in both formats should appear on both sides.

Decide what the recovered time is for

For a student, a less hurried evening may allow a meal before class, a break after school or time to finish an existing task. If the lesson ends late, getting home immediately can also let the rest of the evening start sooner.

The time can remain free. Filling every recovered minute with extra revision would turn a lighter timetable back into a crowded one. A family can choose a calmer transition into tuition or an earlier end to the day's commitments.

If practice is needed between classes, give it a clear task and place in the week. A few questions on the method just taught have a different purpose from the live explanation. Our weekly maths revision routine offers guidance on arranging that work.

For a parent, the benefit may be fewer interruptions rather than more free time. Being home when the lesson ends can remove a collection deadline. Supporting a younger child before class remains part of the routine, but it is a different commitment from accompanying them for the whole journey.

A live lesson within a simpler routine

DeepThink's tutors teach on Zoom, either sharing their screen and writing on screen, or using Zoom's whiteboard or another digital whiteboard. Students can follow the teacher's working from home. When a shared whiteboard is used, they can write on screen too.

A suitable screen, clear sound and a place to write make these exchanges comfortable. Students can listen to a classmate's explanation, compare it with their own working and ask the teacher about a step. A familiar study space helps the child move straight from getting ready into that work.

At DeepThink, our tutors lead live online classes capped at 4, with webcams on so they can see and speak with each student. The platform is used to assign homework and extra practice outside class. Our online maths tuition page describes the teaching and programme details.

To plan the change, write down one ordinary tuition day's journeys for the student and each accompanying parent. Include the time needed to get ready at home. You can then decide where the recovered time will help most: a meal before class, an uninterrupted part of the parent's day or an earlier finish for the child.