What the parent is actually deciding
A parent choosing a tutor or a music teacher is deciding whether to hand their child to a stranger for an hour a week, often in their own home or in a room they will not be sitting in. An adult learner is deciding whether this person can get them to a grade, a level or an exam. Neither decision is made from a line saying "our teachers are fully qualified and DBS checked".
Both are made from a profile: a face, a name, what the person holds, who checked them, and how they teach. It is the page parents read for longest on a lessons site, and on most lessons sites it does not exist.
Here is how to build profiles as records so a school with fourteen teachers maintains them without a developer.
The record
One record per teacher, with fields:
| Field | Purpose | |---|---| | Name | As students say it | | Photo | Real, taken in the teaching room, not a stock portrait | | Subjects or instruments | Relationship to subject records | | Levels | Beginner, grades, GCSE, A level, adult, exam boards | | Qualifications | Degree, diploma, teaching qualification, grade or level attained | | Vetting | Background check type and year, with the scheme named | | Experience | Years teaching, ages taught, settings | | Approach | Three or four sentences in their own words | | Availability | Days and times, or a live feed from the booking tool | | Location | Studio, at the student's home, online, or a mix | | Fee | If it differs per teacher, from the fee record | | Languages | For language schools and multilingual families | | Booking link | Deep link to a trial with this teacher |
The template renders those in that order, ending with a "Book a trial with [name]" button and a link back to each subject page they teach.
Qualifications, written so a parent can read them
"Grade 8 distinction, ABRSM. BMus, [university]. Twelve years teaching piano to children from beginner to Grade 8." Not "highly experienced professional musician". The specifics are what a comparing parent can weigh, and vague superlatives read as a cover for nothing in particular.
For tutors: the degree, the subject, the exam boards taught, and whether they have marked or taught in schools. For language teachers: the qualification (a recognised teaching certificate), the levels taught, and whether they are a native or near-native speaker. For coding and STEM clubs: what they build and what they have taught, since formal qualifications matter less than demonstrable projects.
Vetting, stated plainly
Say which check was done, by whom, and when. Background-check regimes differ by country, so name the one that applies to you rather than the generic phrase, and say who holds the certificate. If teachers work unsupervised with children, say what supervision or safeguarding policy applies as well. Where checks are renewed on a cycle, keep the renewal date in the record so an expired check does not sit on a live page.
That is one of the three pains we hear most from lesson providers: parents cannot see qualifications or vetting, so they ask by email, and the answer arrives after they have booked someone else.
The approach paragraph
Ask each teacher to answer one question into a phone recording: "What does a first lesson with you look like?" Transcribe it, tidy it, publish it under their photo. It is the field parents quote back in the trial, and it is the only part of the profile that cannot be templated.
A booking button on every profile
Every profile ends with a trial booking for that teacher, deep linked into Acuity, TutorBird, My Music Staff, Teachworks or Calendly with the teacher and the trial appointment type pre-selected. A parent who has just read a profile should not be sent to a general contact form to name their preference in prose.
For schools that allocate teachers centrally rather than letting parents pick, the button books a trial for the subject and the profiles stay as reassurance rather than as a choice.
Where profiles appear
- An Our Teachers page, filterable by subject or instrument and by location, each card showing photo, name, subjects and levels.
- On each subject page, as the teachers who teach it, so the violin page shows violin teachers.
- On the trial booking page, so the parent knows who they are about to meet.
- In the confirmation email, with a link back to the profile.
Photography
One session, all teachers, in the room where lessons happen, with their instrument or their materials. Compressed, sized for a card and a profile header, lazy loaded below the fold. Phone photos in good light are better than stock, and stock portraits of models are worse than no photo at all.
Keeping them current
Profiles rot faster than any other page on a lessons site: teachers leave, take new qualifications, change days. The record makes maintenance small. A teacher leaves, the record is unpublished and disappears from the teachers page, the subject pages and the booking. A teacher adds a diploma, one field changes. Whoever runs the office does it in a minute, and the annual job is checking vetting renewal dates.
What to leave out
Home addresses, personal phone numbers and personal social accounts. Ages and family details. Photographs of children in lessons without written parental permission, and even then use them sparingly. Certificate scans; the statement and the willingness to show it on request is enough.
Where this sits
Teacher profiles with qualifications, vetting, approach and a trial booking button are one of the six things we build into every lessons website, alongside a page per subject, stated fees and trial booking that converts to a recurring slot. They matter for private tutors and music teachers most of all, because for those readers the teacher is the product and the profile is the shop window.