TUTORING
GCSE Maths Tutor
Hi! I’m Eddie
I’m a Geography Student at a Top 10 UK University. At A-Level, I studied Geography, Economics, and Biology. I also undertook an EPQ, in which I achieved an A*. I’m a Geography tutor working with GCSE and A-level students across CIE, AQA, Edexcel, and OCR.
GCSE Maths tutor – Loughborough, London & online
I’m Eddie, a GCSE Maths tutor, and here’s a scenario I see constantly. A Year 11 sits down with a past paper. They work through it properly, no messing about, and still drop marks across five completely different topics. The report says “inconsistent”. Parents’ evening says “needs to apply herself.” And everyone concludes the child must just be bad at Maths.
Nine times out of ten, that’s five symptoms of one problem. Find the one problem, and four of the five clear up on their own – no extra revision required!
Why does my child keep losing marks across so many topics?
Because Maths is cumulative in a way that no other GCSE subject really is. A gap in fractions from Year 8 doesn’t sit politely in the fractions box waiting for a fractions question. It rampages about, and bleeds into algebra, ratios, probabilities, anything built on the same foundation. Your child then loses marks in four topics they were actually taught perfectly well.
This is why “he needs to revise more” so often doesn’t work. Revising a topic you don’t have the foundation for is just repeating the confusing bit more slowly. The fix isn’t more hours with a nose in a book – it’s the right hour, spent on getting yourself a strong launch pad to work off of.
That’s the whole job, as I see it. A GCSE Maths tutor’s real value isn’t reteaching the syllabus – school already does that, five hours a week. It’s identification of gaps, and then plugging them.
Foundation or Higher tier – which one should my child sit?
Short version: Foundation tier is capped at grade 5, and Higher tier runs from grade 4 up to grade 9. So the decision caps or unlocks your child’s ceiling, and it’s usually made by the school rather than by you.
Both mistakes cost grades. Push a student onto Higher too early and they spend two years half-understanding harder content, coming out with a 4 they’d have got comfortably on Foundation. Leave a capable student on Foundation too long and you’ve written off a 6 or a 7 before they’ve had a chance at it.
Sometimes the right move is a spell on Higher to stretch a student, then a return to Foundation where they can build real speed and accuracy on content they can properly secure. I’ve seen that work well more than once. What matters is that it’s a deliberate decision based on evidence, and that it gets revisited if it turns out to be wrong.
It’s also worth knowing what’s riding on a grade 4. In England, students who don’t reach a grade 4 in Maths have to carry on studying it after Year 11 as a condition of their college funding. So a near miss isn’t the end of it – it’s another two years of it.
If you’re not sure which tier your child sits in, that’s a completely reasonable thing to want a second opinion on, and it’s one of the more useful things a first session can settle.
A quick check you can do tonight – for free!
Pick a topic your child says they “get”. Don’t set them a question. Ask them to explain the method out loud, from scratch, no notes, as though they’re teaching it to someone who’s never seen it before.
Watch what happens. If they stall, or if they can only follow the shape of a worked example that’s sat in front of them, you’ve found a gap – even if their exercise book looks immaculate. Copying a method and understanding a method look absolutely identical on paper. They sound completely different though.
Do it with three topics and you’ll have a better map of where your child actually is than a term of ticked homework will give you.
And here’s the bonus: this is the revision. Teaching something forces a student to reason through it instead of recalling it, which is exactly what makes it stick. It’s active learning, it takes ten minutes, and, again – it’s free! And who doesn’t love free?
It’s also, more or less, how I run a first session – conversation and quizzing over a worksheet, because a worksheet tells me what they got wrong and a conversation tells me why. It also helps students get to know me and how I teach, as well as helping to break the ice.
What does a GCSE Maths tutor cost in the UK?
TutorLab’s 2026 figures put GCSE tutoring at £28–£55 per hour, averaging around £38. Maths sits towards the top of that range – demand is high and steady, and it always has been. Central London runs 20–30% above the national average again.
Qualified-teacher and examiner-led tuition sits higher still, comfortably north of £50/hour in a lot of cases.
What do I cost?
Below those bands – and deliberately so. I price for the family who’s weighing up whether tutoring is affordable at all, not the one with an open budget. My rate depends on how many sessions you want and whether we’re online or in person, so the honest answer is: message me and I’ll tell you, with no sales call attached.
If you’re wondering where the catch is – there isn’t one. I’m an undergraduate, I’m building a track record (160+ completed bookings and 25+ 5 star reviews), and I’d rather be affordable and busy than expensive and idle. I also just enjoy this. Watching a student go from “I’m rubbish at Maths” to explaining a method back to me unprompted is far and away the best part of the week. It’s the same reason I charge affordable rate for my digital freelancing – I like seeing growth, whether in a pupil or small business.
On whether it’s worth it at all: the Education Endowment Foundation – an independent charity, not a tutoring company – finds that one-to-one tuition adds around five months of additional progress over a year. Their evidence is also clear that it works best when it’s targeted at an identified gap rather than delivered generically, which is rather the point of everything above.
What does a session with your Maths tutor actually look like?
The first session is a diagnosis, not a lesson.
We talk. I’ll ask your child to explain things, throw a few targeted questions at them, and work out where the floor actually is. There’s no sense drilling quadratics for six weeks if the thing costing them marks is negative numbers.
Small tasks between sessions, marked before we meet.
A past-paper question, a targeted topic sheet – something specific and short, not an hour of busywork. I mark it before the next session, so we’re always plugging gaps rather than touring topics that are already solid.
You actually hear what’s going on.
Feedback during and after sessions, mapped against the exam board specification, so you can see where your child is rather than just whether they turned up. Parents tell me this is the bit they find most valuable, and sometimes don’t get from other tutors – it allows the parent to check in on their child’s progress if they so choose.
Flexible sessions, online or in person.
Standard sessions run 60 minutes, but I’ll do shorter or longer if that suits your schedule/child better. Online via Google Meet or Zoom, or in person around Loughborough and London.
Am I the right Maths tutor for your child?
Sometimes, no – and I’d rather say so now than three sessions in.
Maths wasn’t one of my own A-levels. I took Geography (A*), Economics (A) and Biology (B), plus an EPQ (A*), and I’m now a Geography undergraduate at a top-10 UK university. What all of those had in common was maths: Spearman’s Rank, Chi-Squared, elasticity calculations, index numbers. My degree more so – 100 hours on statistics alone last year.
So: I don’t tutor A-level Maths. If that’s what you need, tell me and I’ll point you towards someone better placed, no hard feelings. What I’m good at is GCSE, and specifically the diagnostic side of it – finding the foundation that was never properly laid, and laying it. Alongside Maths I tutor Geography, Biology, Economics, English, and GCSE Chemistry and Physics, Years 4 through 13. I hold an Enhanced DBS check.
I remember one teacher from a Top 25 independent school in the UK telling me a personal anecdote about how he taught a class one page ahead of the students, and they all scored really well – when it comes to teaching, being able to teach is the most important skill to have, not knowing the content off by heart. You can read my reviews below if you’d like more of an idea of how my tutee’s find my tutoring.
If your child is confidently sitting at a 7 and chasing a 9 in Maths specifically, a subject specialist is probably a better fit. If they’re stuck somewhere between a 3 and a 6 and need some help – that’s exactly what I do.
What parents say
Roseline A summed up the approach better than I have:
“Went over the topics carefully and made sure they were understood before moving on to more complicated parts.”
That’s the entire method in one sentence, honestly.
Nancy M has had me working with her son across several subjects. She described the sessions as tailored, with each topic properly grasped before we moved on, and said she’d seen noticeable progress in both his learning and his exam preparation. She also called it a comfortable environment to ask questions in – which matters enormously in Maths, where a lot of students have learned to stay quiet rather than admit they’re lost.
Rachael D, whose son I supported through GCSE, put the emphasis on confidence:
“He helped my son hugely with exam technique tips and boosted his confidence before his assessment.”
Frequently Asked Questions — GCSE Maths Tutor
Do you tutor both Foundation and Higher tier GCSE Maths?
Yes, both. And if you’re not certain which tier is right, I can help you work that out before you commit – see the tier section above for what’s actually at stake in that decision.
Do you tutor A-level Maths?
No. Maths wasn’t one of my own A-levels, and I’d rather be upfront than take on a student I’m not the strongest fit for. I’ll happily recommend someone better placed. For GCSE, particularly diagnosing a specific gap, that’s where I add the most value.
What if I don’t know which topic is causing the problem?
That’s usually the first thing we work out together, and it’s the single most useful hour of the whole process. Try the “explain it out loud” check above in the meantime – it’ll often get you most of the way there on its own.
Do you tutor online or in person?
Both. I’m based in Loughborough and London and tutor in person locally, with online sessions via Google Meet or Zoom for students further afield. Online works well for Maths – a shared digital whiteboard beats two people leaning over the same sheet of paper.
How quickly will we see a difference?
It varies, and I’d be suspicious of anyone who promises you a number. Closing one specific foundational gap is usually faster than parents expect – the diagnosis takes longer than the fix. Rebuilding broader confidence takes longer, and often needs support from parents as well. I’ll of course keep you updated after each and every session.
Is it too late to start in Year 11?
No, though it changes the plan. Earlier means we can rebuild foundations properly; later means we prioritise the highest-mark-value gaps and exam technique. Both are worth doing. The worst option is waiting until March of Year 11 to find out there was a problem.
What if my child struggles to focus, or has ADHD?
That’s very workable one-to-one. I keep sessions moving with quizzing, interactive tasks and regular checks on understanding rather than long stretches of talking, and I adapt the format to whatever actually holds their attention. Plenty of students concentrate far better one-to-one than they ever could in a class of thirty.
Do you tutor subjects other than Maths?
Yes – Geography, Biology, Economics, English, and GCSE Chemistry and Physics, from Years 4 through 13. You can see the full range of tutoring services here, and if it’s primary support you’re after, Key Stage 2 tuition is here.
Ready to Close the Gap? Get in Touch with Eddie
If your child’s Maths grade needs a boost – or you just want a second opinion on whether Foundation or Higher is the right call – get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat. We can work out where the actual gap is, whether I’m the right person to help, and what it’d cost.