When contacting me, please do mention the age and year group of your child, their strengths, areas for development and interests so I can get back to you with how I could support them. Thank you.
Having had 30 years experience in the primary classroom and seven years as a dedicated home tutor, I can identify gaps in children's learning and devise motivating activities to fill them, thus developing firmer foundations for further learning.
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23 customer reviews
Liz
We are so pleased to find Katie to support our son. She is is a brilliant and experienced educator. She is thoughtful and patient and well prepared for each session.
Tahnya Sweaton
I feel so grateful to have found Katie! She is a wonderful teacher and puts my daughter at ease with maths where she has struggled with maths concepts for years at school. My daughter is now getting more confident with maths each lesson she has with Katie. Would highly recommend her tutoring! More...
Jak
Katie has been an absolutely brilliant tutor for our daughter, supporting her with phonics, reading, and writing. The progress we’ve seen has been dramatic, not just in her understanding and ability, but in her confidence too.
Our daughter is autistic and finds the school environment overwhelming, but Katie’s one-to-one sessions in a quiet, calm setting have made a huge difference. Katie teaches with patience, clarity, and a lovely sense of fun. She simplifies concepts in a way that makes them truly accessible, and our daughter genuinely looks forward to every session. She wishes Katie were her school teacher (as do we).
Katie is also incredibly accommodating and responsive to our needs. She’s the only educator who has made a real, lasting impact on our daughter’s literacy. We would wholeheartedly recommend her to any family whose child needs a little extra support.
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Gargi
Katie has made a huge difference to my son's maths attainment in primary school. When he started classes with her, he struggled with basic concepts and lacked confidence in his skills. Katie was able to quickly identify his strengths and weaknesses and find learning strategies that were tailored to his needs. Three years on, he has just got his Sats scores and done really well. Thank you Katie for your fantastic help! More...
Sarah
Katie has been absolutely brilliant with my 10 year old daughter. She built a rapport with her immediately and has re-inspired a love of writing stories.
She has identified areas to focus on and has introduced varied techniques and games to embed key principles of punctuation, grammar and spellings. My daughter has made excellent progress and grown in confidence too.
Katie was very reliable and flexible when required with regards scheduling the twice weekly in person sessions and adjusted the few online sessions that we finished with to ensure no visual stress was suffered. She has provided a more effective English education in just the last three months than my daughter has received in five years and I am so very grateful. If we hadn’t moved away, we would certainly be keeping Katie on as a tutor. I cannot recommend her highly enough.
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Becs
From the very first session Katie created a welcoming and friendly environment that made it easy to approach her about my child's educational needs.
Katie is incredibly patient and approachable, always encouraging my child to ask questions and explore creative writing ideas.
Our child is now much more confident in his spelling and grammar skills.
Katie's positive attitude and personalised teaching style make every session enjoyable and productive.
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Emma
Katie has really helped my son improve his writing and spelling and he has made great progress at school with Katie’s weekly support. Katie has helped with spelling strategies, tailoring his learning to his needs which has boosted his confidence and he is now much more enthusiastic about his learning More...
Nina
Tutoring
Katie has been tutoring my 8 year old daughter in English throughout the school year with intensive tutoring over the summer in both Maths and English. My daughter loves her sessions and Katie’s keen eye has identified areas that need working on. This reinforcement means that my daughter’s education has a solid foundation based on true understanding and we are extremely grateful to Katie with the progress that has been made. More...
Emily Gardner
Katie tutored our 6 year old in phonics and handwriting over the summer holidays, and we were extremely pleased with her tutoring. From the offset, Katie took great care in introducing herself (she wrote a lovely letter to our son before his first session) and in outlining exactly what we should expect. We had several messages and a phone call to discuss our exact requirements, and it was clear that we were in professional, capable hands. Katie had a fantastic manner with our son, she was friendly and cheery, but she also managed to keep him held to the task in hand in a way that teachers do so well! He looked forward to his sessions with her, and talks of her fondly. He picked up some great extra skills and good solid practice to help advance his reading and writing levels over the summer, and he was extremely proud with the work he produced with Katie. I would definitely recommend Katie, and hope to come back to her again ourselves. More...
Rosie
Katie has been brilliant with my eight-year-old daughter, encouraging her with her year 3 and 4 maths by using a huge variety of games and activities. Her teachers have noticed big improvement in her confidence and approach to solving problems in lessons. More...
Rebecca Wallace
Tutoring
My son has really enjoyed his lessons with Katie, I really can't recommend her highly enough! He looks forward to his weekly lessons and leaves full of inspiration and ideas!
Kate Watson
We can't thank Katie enough. Our son started to see her just before he turned 7. He's now 7.5 and come on so much with her. We're incredibly grateful. He wrote in a letter to us (which we got given this week at his end of year 2 assembly, as part of his end of year activities), "My favourite subject is maths". We can't ask for anything more than that, given he was saying, "I'm rubbish at maths" less than a year ago, aged just 6. He loved lessons with Katie, his confidence has increased across the board and it's made all the difference. We are going to let him see how he gets on now without Katie for a bit, but if he ever needed another confidence boost, we know where we would come first to ask for help. Thank you again. K. More...
Alison Durkin
Katie is an exceptionally gifted teacher. She makes learning fun and interesting using her many skills, experience and excellent resources.
My grandsons have enjoyed their sessions with her and have benefited immensely from her teaching. Their confidence and self esteem have improved and so have their enjoyment of school.
I would highly recommend Katie as an amazing tutor to any child who is struggling at school especially after the last few years of lockdowns from Covid.
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Doug White
Katie tutored my daughter for over a year mainly in spelling techniques and then with some additional maths assistance. Katie creates a wonderful environment to learn in and is able to tailor an approach almost instantly. There has been a marked improvement, noted by teachers, in our daughter’s progress. More...
Jemma
I can't recommend Katie's tuition highly enough. My son has received tutoring from Katie in English and Maths for over 6 months and I have noticed a huge improvement in both his school grades and confidence. I have had to recently enroll my younger son in Katie's classes as he was so jealous of all the fun his brother was having. As a parent I have found Katie to be a pleasure to work with; she is friendly, professional and always flexible to our needs in terms of class times and holidays etc. I'm so glad we found her and would recommend her to others in a heartbeat. More...
Cressida
Katie has been tutoring my daughter math's for several months now. My daughter had begun to hate math's and say it was too hard and that she couldn't do it. Since starting her tutoring with Katie, my daughter's confidence has grown hugely and her whole attitude toward the subject has changed. She is beginning to recognise patterns and tackle math's problems by herself. Her schoolteacher has also commented on what a change there has been. We are very pleased with the progress she has made. More...
Steve Bonney
Katie has been wonderful in helping my daughter gain confidence in maths.
I would recommend her to others seeking a professional, experienced and caring tutor.
Amy Smith
Maths Tutoring
Katie was very flexible, accommodating and helpful when booking sessions. Her style of teaching was very supportive and she has had a very positive impact on our daughter’s confidence. We are very grateful for her input
Amara
Tutoring
Katie has been a great help with my year 1 twins!
K helped them gain confidence, knowledge and skill in maths and English.
Their school teachers expressed how my kids phonics and reading skills markedly improved since starting these lessons. The growth was amazing!
Katie is very reliable and flexible with rescheduling time or dates which I am immensely grateful for. She also provides a comprehensive feedback about my kids progress, home study spelling book and lovely children story books which are always available to borrow. When my twins achieve spelling needs K provides them with a spelling certificate.
I would not hesitate to recommend Katie as a tutor!
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Linda Hamilton
Tutoring
Our 8 year old son who has ADHD and is Dyslexic is really enjoying his sessions with Katie. She keeps him engaged by making learning fun. He looks forward to his next session. More...
Sarah
Katie tutored our son weekly from the end of Year 2 until Covid-19 struck when he was in Year 4.
Katie quite honestly saved our son’s schooling.
He found concentrating in class very hard and had fallen behind.
She expertly identified the holes in his knowledge and found ways to help him understand and learn in a manner he enjoyed and could remember.
I would sit in the next room and I never ceased to be amazed with the patience Katie showed and how our son responded to her encouragement. Every lesson was planned and, where possible, incorporated his interests.
We cannot recommend Katie's tutoring highly enough. We really wish she hadn't moved so far away!
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Melissa (parent)
My son is dyslexic so we decided he needed a little more help with school work. He started with Katie in the middle of year 3 for both Maths and English.
Katie has provided consistent and tailored tutoring for my son right through to the end of Year 6. He passed an entrance exam, which I am sure he would not have been able to do without her. His confidence has grown and he has even taught my husband a few tips and tricks with maths.
Katie's calm, patient and persistent manner has really helped my son to develop and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her for tutoring.
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Lawrence (Parent)
My Son was in year 4 of primary school when we contacted Katie. He was falling behind in most areas of school and, more importantly, lacked the confidence he needed in his abilities.
Katie was great, a regular one-hour lesson every Saturday morning slowly built his confidence and showed him what he was capable of. Focus was initially given to English, his weakest area, the lesson was then extended to 1 ½ hours and a maths element was included.
When he was in year 5 he was diagnosed with ADHD; Katie introduced techniques such as Topics, projects and story writing to make it exciting for him and keep him engaged; he even wrote a short story in the form of a small book. Some of this work, which he didn’t manage to finish, he’s now continuing at home.
There is a lot more that goes into Katie’s lessons than just the hour teaching; having seen the room prior to the lesson starting it’s clear a huge amount of preparation and groundwork is done to make sure the lesson time is as productive as possible with the use of various props, a tablet, prompts, printouts and computer based work etc.
He continued his lessons right up to his SATS in year 6 and we have seen him grow into a mature, confident, knowledgeable boy who is happy (and wants) to learn and now ready to take on the challenges of Senior school.
I would not hesitate in recommending Katie’s services for your child.
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What do you love most about your job?
I get such a buzz from seeing children grow in confidence and become proud, self-motivated learners.
What inspired you to start your own business?
Having taken a step back from a permanent teaching role when my husband retired, I missed working with children. I wanted to set up a business to support the sort of children I had seen struggle in some traditional classroom environments, drawing upon my experience planning and motivating so many different characters over 30 years. I feel passionately that learning should be fun and interactive and that every child's successes should be celebrated.
Why should our clients choose you?
I work with integrity and determination, drawing upon years of success.
Tutoring is my main business so my focus is not diverted to other things and I have plenty of time to plan individual programmes of work for my students.
Can you provide your services online or remotely? If so, please add details.
I have provided Zoom lessons for some of my KS2 clients, during lockdown, depending on their learning styles.
What changes have you made to keep your customers safe from Covid-19?
My summer lessons will be taught outside as much as possible on the verandah of a summer house, with hand washing and sanitising of any interactive equipment used. There is access to an outside customer toilet, directly from the garden.
Private tuition for 4-11 year olds
I work with parents and children over time to identify goals and gaps in learning. I then plan and deliver motivating, non-threatening tasks, games and activities to achieve those goals. I aim to empower children to make the best of their abilities, take a pride in their learning and have the courage to learn from mistakes.
