What GCSE tuition actually involves
Most parents contacting a tutor have the same underlying question, and it isn't about syllabus coverage. It's is my child going to be all right? So here is what actually happens, plainly.
The first session is diagnostic. I don't teach a topic; I find out where the understanding broke. That means working backwards from whatever they can't currently do until we reach the last thing they genuinely understood. It is almost never where the school thinks it is, and it's almost never where your child thinks it is either.
After that, an hour a week in the same slot, with a written plan you can see. Short, specific work between sessions rather than a pile of past papers. And a short note to you afterwards saying what we covered and what's still shaky — because you're paying for this and you should be able to see what you're getting.
When to start
Year 9 or early Year 10 is the ideal moment and almost nobody does it, because nothing has visibly gone wrong yet. This is when gaps are small, cheap and quick to fix.
Year 10 is the most common sensible time. There's enough evidence to know where the problems are and enough runway to rebuild properly rather than patch.
Year 11, autumn term still works well. We can do real repair work and still leave a clear run at exam technique.
Year 11, spring changes what tuition is for. With weeks left we concentrate on exam technique, command words, mark schemes and the highest-value topics, because that is where the marks actually are at that point. It's still worth doing. I'll just be honest with you about which situation you're in.
Which subjects
At GCSE I teach physics, maths, chemistry and biology, for Combined Science and Triple, on all UK exam boards.
If your child takes more than one of these, there's a genuine advantage in having the same person teach them. The algebra in a maths lesson and the algebra in a physics equation are the same algebra, taught in different rooms by different people with different notation, and a lot of students never connect the two. I can make that connection explicit, and it tends to move both subjects at once.
When it isn't really about the subject
I'm a registered mental health nurse as well as a teacher, and I'd be doing you a disservice if I pretended every underperforming student has a knowledge gap. A good number of them are anxious, exhausted, or quietly avoiding a subject because it has become frightening. Avoidance looks exactly like laziness from the outside, and it is treated as laziness far too often.
I notice that pattern early, I don't panic about it, and I don't treat it as a discipline problem. What I offer is calm, structure and realistic expectations. That is not therapy, and I'm careful about the line — if something more than that is needed, I'll say so and point you towards the right kind of help rather than pretending an hour of physics a week will fix it.
What I won't do
- Promise a grade. Nobody honest can, and anyone who does is selling you something.
- Tell you your child needs a year of sessions before I've met them.
- Fill an hour with past papers because it's easier than teaching.
- Tell you it's going well when it isn't.