About Keystone Tutors
Our Founders' Story
Since 2007, we have guided over 15,000 students on their academic journeys – helping them achieve their goals, and flourish academically and emotionally.
We are proud to work with some of the very best tutors in the UK.
Our Story
Why We Set Up
Keystone Tutors
Since 2007, we have sought to run an organisation that is defined by its professionalism and energised by the transformational power of tutoring.
Keystone's Founders, Will Orr-Ewing and Josh Pull, both had tutors when they were young and know first-hand how a great tutor stretches a child’s reach beyond its grasp. Tutoring was pivotal to both their achievements their self-confidence.
Will began tutoring after he graduated from Oxford and couldn’t believe that he had found a livelihood that was so enjoyable and so rewarding. He soon encouraged Josh, one of his oldest friends from prep school, who had begun a career in investment banking at Lazard, to leave finance and run the company with him.
They started to build a name for ourselves as people who took tutoring seriously, but it was not long before they faced problems: the sector was charming but amateurish, and justly had a poor reputation amongst schools for a lack of professionalism.
In response they sought to apply lessons learned from more established tutoring firms from across the world, especially the US. And they set about trying to bring the standards expected in other professional services, such as law, banking and teaching, to bear on this ancient, lovable but inconsistent vocation.
Their project was greatly advanced in 2012 when they recruited Ed Richardson, an experienced teacher with a Masters in Teaching & Learning from Oxford, who brought with him the dedication to professionalism expected in a top-performing school. With Ed’s contribution, Keystone have pioneered an approach to tutoring in the UK that is without peer.
In 2023, Ed stepped up to become Keystone’s Managing Director with responsibility for all of Keystone’s day-to-day operations.
Since our earliest days, we have believed that great tutors need support from a great office team. We are often praised for the friendly, positive and efficient office we run and have been blessed by having colleagues stay and grow with us for many years.
Our reach has grown with offices in Hong Kong and Singapore; and our reputation has grown too: we are often the UK tutoring company of choice for discerning families from all over the world.
The belief behind
everything we do
“I have nothing against my teachers, but I have learnt more from you in a few hours than I have learnt from school in whole terms.”
Ask any professional tutor and they will share a variant of this testimonial with you.
Tutoring is a uniquely efficient and powerful way to learn that has been preeminent from Classical times through to the present day.
We don’t like to stretch the keystone analogy too far (without it, the whole edifice crumbles!) but we are aware that we come into families’ lives at a time of acute anxiety and high stakes and are granite-like in our commitment to help our students perform as they should.
The relationships forged in tutoring are so close-knit and consequential that many of us tutors are still in touch with tutees and their families from decades ago.
But time is one of the scarcest resources for families, and we take seriously the obligation to make sure every hour with Keystone is of the utmost value.
To do this, we strive to live out the following core principles:
We are invited into a student’s life at a time of profound significance, and we expect our tutors to match the seriousness of our families.
Tutors should be a victim of their own success, not a perpetual crutch. Successful tutors help their pupils to become academically self-reliant.
When appropriate, we encourage tutors to coordinate their work with their pupils' teachers and other educational professionals.
Keystone has a considered charitable scheme to provide tutoring to families who would not otherwise be able to afford it.
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