Who are they?
Who are they?The Golden Circle
10 Albert Bridge Road
Battersea
London
SW11 4PY
Tel: 020 3845 9014 / 07882 122737
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.goldencircletutors.co.uk
We have met with Golden Circle’s staff. In addition, 26 clients and 25 tutors have completed an online survey (sent to 210 clients and 178 tutors) and we have followed this up with additional short phone interviews with at least eight of those surveyed.
Golden Circle staff
A family business, with tutors and clients claiming it’s particularly ‘friendly’ and ‘personal’ as a result. Hannah Titley BA (biological sciences, Oxford), MA (public policy, King’s College London) PGCE was first on board, having founded the organisation in 2017. Her sister, Lydia Titley BA (international business management and French, Bath), joined a year later and is marketing manager. They have a shared office space in Battersea and are supported by a client manager.
Hannah – who has clocked up 15 years of private tutoring and ‘never intends to stop’ – qualified as a teacher through Teach First and her business still has close links with the social enterprise. But after two years of classroom experience in southwest London, she realised ‘school isn’t for everyone’ and set up UK’s first dedicated home schooling tutor company – later adding hourly after-school tutoring to her offering.
For home schooling clients, Hannah says it can feel like she’s joined the extended family for the duration (often two or three years) that she supports them – and that’s just the way clients like it. ‘Hannah knows everything about our son and we feel completely supported by her and the rest of the Golden Circle team,’ said one. The words ‘responsive’, ‘reliable’, ‘caring’ and ‘efficient’ came up time and again in our interviews with parents. ‘Communication stands out too – they just make everything so easy,’ added one. In some cases, the parents chose the company purely on the basis of Hannah – ‘We just really like her, and she gets us.’ Tutors say they feel ‘Hannah completely has my back’ and that, ‘if you drop them a message, they’re always straight back to you’.
What do they offer?
Home schooling is their bread and butter, accounting for well over half their clients. A handful are in school some of the week (so-called flexi-schoolers) but most learn entirely from home, with Golden Circle creating a bespoke daytime curriculum delivered by a team of teacher-trained tutors. Majority are secondary school age, with Golden Circle either tutoring them through GCSEs (the family organises the exams privately) or aiming to get them back into full-time school – depending on the family’s needs. A few students are younger, in primary school, and some are older, doing A levels. More often than not, clients approach them directly, but they also get referrals from schools and local authorities.
Several of the families we spoke to had drawn up a shortlist of tutor companies specialising in home education and had landed on Golden Circle ‘because we found the others were really just glorified tutor agencies’ where ‘home schooling was a bit of an afterthought’. Here, they tell us, it’s a case of main course not sides. Home schooling families say they value the feeling of a ‘true partnership’ and the ‘multiple touchpoints – we frequently discuss curriculum, resources and progress with each tutor and the Golden Circle team’. Above all, they feel the tutors have ‘impeccable credentials’, are ‘really nice people’ and ‘turned our lives around by re-engaging our child’. For many, the mentoring was as important as the academics – ‘they bring it all together in a very special way’.
Praise too for the extracurricular activities that can form part of the home schooling package – trips to art galleries, museums, parks etc, ‘complementing lessons and bringing learning to life’. The company also offers lessons on the likes of critical skills, creative thinking, entrepreneurship, coding, debating, teamwork, current affairs and even vlogging.
Usual hourly after-school tutoring also available, from 3+ (younger ones usually only for EAL, they assure us), with every level of schooling from early years (including all entrance exams) through to A level and IB, including some less traditional subjects like Greek (ancient and modern) and Russian. We always ask tutor companies the kinds of schools their clients aspire to attend – in this case, it’s Westminster, St Paul’s, KCS Wimbledon, City of London, Dulwich College, Alleyn’s, Whitgift and The American School in London – along with boarding schools such as Brighton College, Sevenoaks, Eton, Winchester College, Marlborough and Charterhouse. They also cover university preparation – ‘They found us the right tutor for this really quickly and my son responded very well to it,’ said one father. Oxbridge support increasingly called upon.
Sixty per cent of Golden Circle’s tutoring is in-person – half of this takes place in London, the rest in Manchester, Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol. The remaining 40 per cent is online (mainly Zoom), with clients mostly UK based (all over), with a significant number in the US (US curriculum available), plus (mainly expats) in the Middle East and a few in Europe. Some do a mix of both in-person and online.
Traditional residential placements available (though less common since Covid), with tutors having flown out to eg Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Miami and south of France. No courses or workshops.
With 20+ SENCos on their books, they are adept at dealing with SEN, including clients with EHCPs (about a dozen currently). Dyslexia, autism, ADHD, processing issues all in a day’s work. In many cases, SEN (and/or associated mental health issues) are the reason the child can’t cope in school, though others are professional tennis players, skiers etc.
Background and basics
All of Golden Circle’s 300 tutors are qualified teachers, almost all of them having been through the Teach First programme (the rest come from their referrals). ‘It means we’re guaranteed great tutors because Teach First recruitment is rigorous, standards are high, you’re really thrown in at the deep end and you deal with behavioural management and SEN,’ says Hannah. Parents say these tutors have ‘real spark’, ‘are empathetic’ and ‘unbelievably good tutors’. They are young – all aged between 25 and 35 – but all have at least two years’ classroom experience, enhanced DBS and two references are followed up. At least one in five tutors also holds an education-related master’s degree, is an experienced pastoral leader and is an examiner for a UK examining body. ‘You get the crème de la crème,’ as one parent put it.
Unusually, Hannah only interviews 60 per cent of new recruits face-to-face; the rest are interviewed by phone. There are three reasons for this, she says. First, they are ‘usually in school so that’s their only option’. Second, they’re trained teachers who have gone through the painstaking recruitment process of Teach First already (also the reason they don’t ask tutors to do a mock lesson, she says). And third, ‘I’d argue a phone interview can be preferable as it removes unconscious bias’. Vast majority told us they don’t mind, but one said, ‘It’s hard to imagine another customer-facing job, particularly working with children, where you are taken on without having met anyone in the business.’
Certainly no complaints about matching – families say Hannah went ‘out of her way’ to discuss needs, interests, learning styles etc to find the right tutor. One parent said a tutor was ‘a bit flaky on timing but I wouldn’t hold it against the agency as it’s highly unusual and they sorted it immediately’. Vast majority couldn’t praise their tutor enough.
Clients are contacted after the first session (feedback is passed on to tutors) then regularly thereafter. Written report after each lesson for all, and home schooling families get a termly meeting. No training for tutors (‘We’re not allowed as they’re self-employed,’ says Hannah) but they have access to resources, plus a WhatsApp group to share best practice.
Golden Circle belongs to the Tutors’ Association, and they’ve also formed an association of their own, the Home Schooling Association UK, ‘to raise standards in the tutoring and home schooling industry’. They donate ‘substantially’ to charities annually, the charity chosen by tutors. This year, they are supporting Heal Rewilding to offer more outdoor learning opportunities to inner-city children.
Money and small print
Not cheap. One-off registration fee of £180 for after-school tuition and £500 for home schooling. Hourly tutoring rates from £85 (£95 for in-person) to £155 (£250 for in-person), depending on the level of education. Home school packages also available – 10/15/20 hour timetable per week (15 hours is the average for a 33-week school year – but term dates are flexible and there’s no minimum commitment). All prices are inclusive of VAT. Golden Circle keeps back 29 per cent of the fee, the rest going to tutors, who ‘never receive less than £50 an hour’. All tutors and clients sign a contract – nothing unexpected in there. Beware of cancelling last minute, though – there’s a strict 24-hour cancellation policy.
Golden Circle say
‘We believe our greatest success is not the excellent exam results students achieve but the positive, intellectually curious and independent learners that graduate from our home school programmes. Many of these students have had a negative experience of school, and it is a privilege to be part of the journey to rebuild their confidence and self-esteem and enjoy education again.’
Remarks
Golden Circle stands out for its home schooling. Parents tell us they have had a ‘profound impact on our academic journey’ and, in one case, ‘literally saved us’. Well worth considering for hourly tutoring too, if only for the sheer calibre of their tutors and knowledge of (especially the London) schools. ‘Golden Tutors really do hold a spark of magic – not quite sure how they do it,’ said one parent. The elite end of tutoring without being stuffy.