About - Keystone Tutors

1. Why was Keystone Tutors set up?

Keystone Tutors was founded as "Russell Group Tutors" in 2006, by Will Orr-Ewing.

It is committed to professionalising and legitimising one-on-one tuition, and to providing it in way that enables and encourages the student rather than providing a crutch. Guy Claxton’s words on learning are a bit of a mantra for all that we are trying to achieve.

We are also committed to providing impartial, no-nonsense educational advice.

2. How does Keystone Tutors select its tutors?

Keystone Tutors has a rigorous selection procedure. In the academic year 2009/10, we received over 800 applications. We have taken on fewer than 50 of these as regular tutors. The selection process is as follows:

1. Tutors submit a skeleton application and are judged on their experience, how long they can commit for (we only take tutors who can commit for over two years), and their academic record. Tutors are also asked what their TED talk would be on, and their answer is discussed at the beginning of the interview.
2. Successful tutors from this stage are then interviewed face-to-face, and have to provide references.
3. Keystone Tutors' most important referencing is internal though: you will have the chance to speak to other parents who have used the tutor before.

3. Who are Keystone’s tutors?

For a sample selection of our tutors, do have a look at our Tutor page.

We choose intelligent and likeable people to be our tutors. While it is a truism that intelligence does not make you a good tutor, we like our tutors to be passionate and knowledgeable about their subjects so that they can field the most curious of questions from their students.

• “Study buddies”

  The easiest tutors to source are the “young-guns”, fresh out of university and keen for some extra cash while they decide their post-university plans. We receive many applicants from these sorts of tutors, and reject most of them. We take on a small amount as study-buddies, but generally we feel it is too precarious to take them on while they are unsure of their plans.

• Tutors

  Most of Keystone’s tutors are professional tutors. They are usually well aware of their plans for the next three or four years, at least, and use tutoring as their main source of income around vocational plans. James Sanford, for instance, has been tutoring for us for over 3 years. On average, he fits twenty hours per week of teaching around his vocation as a musician and music producer. He has worked with many families, tutoring just Science. He has an intricate knowledge of exam syllabi, examiners’ expectations and the common weaknesses of his students.

• Teachers

  A priority for Keystone in the last year has been to recruit ex- or part-time teachers to its ranks. Tutoring is not the “young man’s game” that it is often presented as! Martin Amherst Lock, head of English at Harrow for more than 10 years, brings his vast experience to bear on English students at 13+, GCSE and A level. Similarly, Linda Mayne, headmistress of Northampton High School, a GDST school, one of our more recent recruits, is a very experienced Maths and Science teacher.

4. How does Keystone Tutors train its tutors?

In its ambitions to professionalise tutoring, Keystone Tutors only hires tutors who can commit for more than two years. We do not train all of our tutors. Our teachers, or those tutors who have already been tutoring for more than ten years, do not need it (though they get a good briefing from us before each lesson).

We train all of our other tutors, using a training team of Will Orr-Ewing, Sarah Govett and other senior tutors.

The training is modular and unique.

General tutor training:

This is attended by all new tutors. It is a day’s overview of common tutoring strategies. Here is a menu of the list of topics covered in our training:

Client Management:

• Interacting with parents
  • Establishing The Mission
  • Feedback
  • “Sitting-in”
  • How to write tutor reports

The Tutoring Process:

• Adapting your tuition to different aims
• How to set ground-rules for your sessions
• How to start and set up a lesson

Teaching Strategies: about teaching

• How to ask questions
  • The Socratic method
  • "Eliciting"
• Working aloud
• How to facilitate and monitor understanding
  • Use of maps, chronologies, images, examples
  • Getting students to review information verbally
  • Testing
  • Setting homework
  • How to mark homework

Teaching Strategies: about learning

• How to praise and motivate
  • Setting high standards
  • Building rapport and trust
  • Language
• How to adapt content to different learning styles
• How to help memorise
  • Repetition, Reviewing and Re-capping
  • Mind Maps
  • Mnemonics
  • Chants
• How to design games around content
  • de Bono’s six Hats
• How to be a good role model
  • answering of mobile in lessons
  • modelling reading/asking questions etc.

Subject-specific training:

As you can see from our tutor profiles, Keystone tutors choose five subject levels (i.e. Maths 11+ and 13+) that they will predominantly teach through Keystone. They can therefore build up real subject expertise in that area. Keystone’s subject-specific training allows them to deepen this.

Example – Maths 13+ training.

The National Curriculum now recommends teaching methods for Maths that most tutors did not experience themselves. For example, the “chunking method” of doing long division (included in the New Primary Framework). In Keystone training sessions, tutors are familiarised with these new methods, and all the other strategies for doing Years 5-8 Maths. 

In addition to this training, we encourage tutors to visit our sister site dysTalk, attend workshops and courses on literacy and maths teaching techniques, behavioural issues and study skills techniques.

5. Which materials does Keystone recommend?

We think that educational materials for tutors and parents are one of the most important and exciting developments for the sector.

Keystone has designed many of its own materials. As an example, here is a downloadable pdf of our Harrodian 11+ entry syllabus. Tutors work from these syllabi with Tutor Target sheets to monitor progress.

We also have an extensive library of school-specific past papers to which our tutors have access.

Where we have not written our own materials, we have an exhaustive database of recommended materials. Galore Park is great in many cases, but will not suffice for homeschooling, for instance.

6. How do we monitor the progress of each tuition programme?

We found in the early years that it was easy enough to set up a family with a tutor. But we found it quite difficult to monitor the progress and development of the tuition programme to make sure that goals were being met.

We now have a 7 step process to meet this problem.

1. The Mission

We make sure that the “tutoring mission” is well established before the programme starts. Popular missions are: a particular grade in an exam; entry to a particular school; improvement of self-esteem.

2. Assessment (optional).

If required, we arrange for the student to be academically assessed. This is usually done by Keystone’s resident assessor, Viral Gandhi. You can read more about Viral on the Assessments page. He helps parents set realistic goals for the tuition, and passes a thorough report to the tutor detailing areas that need the most work.

3. Conversation with the school (optional).

Keystone Tutors’ preferred approach - and what works best in our experience - is to have the school on side throughout the process. Will worked as a prep school teacher himself; teachers often know the strengths and weaknesses of a student as well as anyone and can advise on the approach.

Keystone Tutors have designed a super-simple way for teachers and tutors to communicate on particular students.

4. Selection of a tutor

We choose a tutor with experience and training in completing the particular mission.

5. Immediate feedback

We make contact with both the parent and/or student, and tutor, after the first lesson to discuss the reactions of both, and to see whether the stated mission is realistic or needs adjusting.

6. Regular feedback throughout the course

Each tutor is required to submit a monthly report detailing the work done in the month; the successes and areas to work on; and the work for the coming month. For an example of a Keystone report, please have a look here.

7. Always available

Beyond that, Keystone commits itself to calling each parent at regular intervals to discuss the progress of the tuition. Parents are encouraged to call Will, or the office, as often as they like; keeping personally abreast of each tutoring mission is a core philosophy of the company.