Tutor Contract Template for Victorian Homeschool Pods: What to Include
Tutor Contract Template for Victorian Homeschool Pods: What to Include
Finding a specialist tutor for your homeschool pod is one milestone. Documenting the arrangement properly is the one that most Victorian families skip — and the one most likely to cause problems later.
A written tutor agreement serves two distinct purposes. First, it clarifies expectations on both sides: scope of subjects, session frequency, cancellation terms, and payment. Second, and more importantly in Victoria's current regulatory environment, it creates a paper trail demonstrating that the tutor's role is clearly scoped, that parents retain primary educational responsibility, and that the arrangement is not functioning as an unregistered school. The document does not need to be dense legal prose. It does need to cover a specific set of clauses.
Why a Written Agreement Matters in Victoria
Victorian home education is governed by the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 and administered by the VRQA. One of the VRQA's central compliance concerns is the emergence of "quasi-school arrangements" — situations where hired instructors deliver all subjects, parents are absent, and the pod functions as an unregistered school.
If the VRQA ever reviews your arrangement, a written agreement that clearly defines the tutor's limited, subject-specific scope is one of your strongest pieces of evidence that you are operating a lawful supplementary arrangement — not a school. Without that documentation, a VRQA investigator is relying entirely on your verbal account of how the arrangement works.
A written agreement also protects you from the more common, non-regulatory problem: a breakdown in the relationship with the tutor. Disputes over cancellation fees, holiday periods, or whether the tutor was supposed to be setting homework are significantly easier to resolve when expectations were written down at the outset.
The Eight Clauses Your Agreement Should Cover
1. Parties and Date
Name every party: the tutor, and each parent or guardian entering the arrangement. If multiple families in the pod are sharing the tutor, all families should be named — not just one family acting as the primary contracting party. This matters if one family exits the pod and the group needs to renegotiate terms with the remaining participants.
Include the date the agreement is signed and the date sessions are to commence.
2. Scope of Engagement
This is the most important clause in a Victorian context. Define precisely which subjects or learning areas the tutor is engaged to deliver. Be specific: "Year 9 mathematics (algebra and functions)" is more useful than "maths." Specificity reinforces that the tutor is a subject specialist, not a general instructor replacing parental responsibility across all learning areas.
State explicitly what is outside scope. The tutor is not responsible for the child's overall learning plan, VRQA compliance, or any learning area not named in this clause. Parents retain that responsibility.
3. Session Schedule and Location
Document the agreed session days, times, duration, and location. If sessions are to be held at a family home, a community hall, or a library meeting room, name the venue. If the arrangement involves online delivery, specify the platform.
Include provisions for how sessions will be rescheduled when public holidays, illness, or venue unavailability occur. Leaving this undefined is a common source of friction.
4. Payment Terms
State the hourly or per-session rate, how invoicing works, and the payment timeline. If multiple pod families are sharing the cost, document each family's proportional contribution so there is no ambiguity.
Include a cancellation clause with clear notice periods. What happens if the tutor cancels with less than 24 hours notice? What happens if a family cancels? Standard tutoring arrangements typically require 24 to 48 hours notice to avoid a session fee — specify the figure that all parties have agreed to.
5. WWCC Status
State the tutor's Working With Children Check card number and expiry date, and confirm it is an employee-level WWCC card. Volunteer cards are not sufficient for paid tutoring work in Victoria.
If the tutor holds VIT registration, note the registration number. VIT registration satisfies the WWCC requirement for education-related professional work.
Include a clause requiring the tutor to notify all parties immediately if their WWCC or VIT registration status changes. This is not boilerplate — tutors whose registration lapses or is cancelled are legally prohibited from working with children in a paid capacity.
6. Insurance Requirements
The tutor must hold their own Professional Indemnity insurance and Public Liability insurance before sessions commence. State this as a condition of the agreement, not a preference. Ask for the Certificate of Currency and keep a copy on file.
Do not rely on the venue's public liability policy to cover a tutoring engagement without confirming this explicitly with the venue. Most community hall and library venue hire policies do not extend coverage to instructors providing paid professional services.
7. Parental Presence and Supervision
For sessions held in a group pod setting, document how parent supervision is arranged. Whether one parent is always present, parents rotate, or parents are present for arrival and departure but not during the session itself — the specific arrangement should be in writing.
This clause reinforces the structure of a legally compliant pod arrangement. The VRQA's quasi-school concern is primarily about drop-off arrangements where parents are entirely absent and a hired instructor runs all instruction. A documented supervision arrangement demonstrates that is not what is happening here.
8. Termination
Include a notice period for either party to exit the arrangement — typically two to four weeks. Specify what happens to pre-paid sessions if the arrangement ends before those sessions are delivered.
For a shared-tutor arrangement, include a clause addressing what happens if one family in the pod withdraws: does the remaining group have the right to continue under revised terms, or does the original agreement need to be renegotiated?
What the Agreement Should Not Claim to Be
A tutor agreement between private families is not a legally vetted professional services contract prepared by a solicitor. It should not be presented as formal legal advice to anyone. The agreement operates as a clear, documented record of the parties' mutual expectations and the structure of the arrangement.
If your pod arrangement is more complex — for instance, if you are formalising a cost-sharing trust account, hiring a tutor as a genuine employee rather than an independent contractor, or operating across a large group of families — you may want to have a solicitor review the arrangement. For the majority of Victorian pod families engaging a subject specialist for a small group, a well-drafted written agreement between parties is workable and appropriate.
Free Download
Get the Victoria Homeschool Quick-Start Checklist
Everything in this article as a printable checklist — plus action plans and reference guides you can start using today.
Using a Template vs. Drafting From Scratch
Most Victorian families who set out to draft a tutor agreement from scratch spend more time on it than they expect. The questions compound: which insurance clauses are appropriate, what WWCC language is legally accurate, how should shared costs be documented across families? Each question opens further research.
A well-structured template lets you work through the agreement in an hour rather than across several evenings. The Victoria Micro-School & Pod Kit includes an editable tutor engagement template alongside the pod charter and cost-sharing framework — the three documents that form the operational backbone of a compliant Victorian pod arrangement.
Getting the paperwork right at the start of a tutor engagement is significantly easier than trying to reconstruct an agreement after a dispute. It is also the practical evidence, if you ever need it, that your arrangement operated within VRQA rules from the beginning.
Get Your Free Victoria Homeschool Quick-Start Checklist
Download the Victoria Homeschool Quick-Start Checklist — a printable guide with checklists, scripts, and action plans you can start using today.