Find Your Child's Syllabus Code Before You Do Anything Else
It is the first question I ask when a family gets in touch, and roughly half of parents cannot answer it. That is not a criticism: nothing in the school communication…
Blog
Practical writing for parents and students: what the syllabuses actually demand, where marks get lost, and how to fix it before the exam.
- 15 pieces
- 4 topics
Everything here is written by someone who teaches the subject, for a specific situation a family is actually in. Nothing is written to a keyword, which is why there are sixteen pieces rather than sixty.
If you are looking for worked solutions to specific exam problems rather than advice, those live separately in the worked answers, organised by subject.
Getting started
How Much Tutoring Does a Student Actually Need?
Almost every family asks this on the first call, and almost every tutoring service answers it badly, because the commercially convenient answer is "weekly, indefinitely"…
SAT, IELTS or GRE: Which Test Does Your Child Actually Need?
A surprising number of the test preparation enquiries we take start from a decision that was never really made. A student is booked onto SAT coaching because a friend is…
Choosing subjects and tutors
Choosing IGCSE Options in Year 9: What Actually Matters
The options form arrives in the spring of Year 9, usually with an evening at the school and a booklet. Families treat it as a decision about the next two years. It is…
Computer Science or ICT? Choosing at IGCSE
Every year, a group of students picks the wrong one of these two subjects, and almost none of them find out until Year 11. The subjects sit next to each other on an…
Eight Questions Worth Asking Before You Book a Tutor
Choosing a tutor is hard because almost every signal available to you is unreliable. Reviews can be bought. Qualifications do not predict teaching. Hourly rates vary by…
When Tutoring Is Not the Answer
This is an odd thing for a tutoring practice to publish, so let me be direct about why it exists. A reasonable share of the enquiries we take describe a situation that…
Moving up a level
Why Year 12 Is Harder Than Year 11 Suggested It Would Be
The call comes in late October or early November, and it is almost word for word the same every year. She got eight 8s and 9s. She has always been near the top. She came…
The IB Internal Assessment Problem Nobody Warns You About
Ask an IB parent what they are worried about and they will usually name a subject. Higher Level Chemistry, or Analysis and Approaches, or the one where the teacher…
The Maths Gap Between A Level and a Degree
A student finishes A Level Mathematics with an A, or Higher Level Analysis and Approaches with a 6 or 7, starts an engineering or economics degree in September, and is…
Exam technique
How Essay Subjects Are Actually Marked
There is a particular kind of frustration that only happens in essay subjects. A student revises properly, knows the material, writes what is by any reasonable standard…
How to Use Past Papers Properly
Ask a student how their revision is going and a fair number will tell you they have "done loads of past papers." Ask what they scored on the last one and the answer is…
Passing a Language Exam Is Not the Same as Speaking the Language
Every language teacher has seen this and few parents believe it until it happens to them. The student who speaks the language at home, who converses easily, who spent…
Where Science Marks Are Actually Lost
Science papers produce a particular pattern in marked work: the student clearly understands the topic, the final answers are broadly right, and the mark is a grade below…
Why Strong Coders Lose Marks on Cambridge Paper 2
There is a conversation I have with parents several times a year, and it always opens the same way: he's been programming since he was eleven, he built a game last…