Bright Young Things Tuition

The Life and Times of a Super-Tutor

brightyoungthingstuition — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:36:16 +0000

Like so many graduates these days, I left university last year with a sense of grim foreboding. The world was in the throes of an economic crisis that seemed to worsen by the day; riots were spreading across the nation’s streets; and News of the World journalists were listening to everything we said, and then misreporting it. In 2009, when this whole ‘here-comes-the-apocalypse’ rationale came into being, I had remained quietly confident that things would come good for people my age. I thought that we would just ride this little crisis out for a couple of years, accrue a bit more student debt, and ultimately enter the outside world as it started to become a lighter-place again.

How wrong I was. When I left university, Europe was collapsing like a flan in a cupboard, and its graduates were filing out into an enormous proverbial scrap-heap of wasted man and brain-power. Dutifully I followed suit, slipping in to this androgynous, amorphous mass of humanities students, desperately seeking an unpaid internship in literally anything. I even applied for one at a waste-disposal company. If it was good enough for Uncle Bulgaria, I thought, it’s good enough for me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t good enough for them.

So, I returned back to the scrap-heap (proverbial, I had been turned away from the literal one), dusted myself off, and started again. I decided now that I would be a banker. Spreadsheets are cool, I thought, and at least the gutter-press are Public Enemy Number 1 these days; compared to those guys, bankers are pretty-much Mother Theresa. So, I put in some applications, and I successfully convinced all around me that every morning I got out of bed with the sole intent of analysing derivatives. Eventually I attended some interviews, and ultimately I even convinced one bank to have me as an intern. Unpaid, obviously, but working.

It was at this stage, however, that something changed. I had heard about the enormous increase in demand for so-called Super-Tutors in London, and signed up to Bright Young Things Tuition, who offered a rather different route out of the ‘heap. As a tutor, I was suddenly able to do something with my good-for-nothing History of Art degree. Finally, my work involved something that I was passionate about. It also tore me away from my desk, and away from the persistent glare of a computer screen in a darkened room. My office was no longer some soulless tower block filled with pin-striped worker-bees, now it was some of the most remarkable houses in London. And soon after, I was shipped out to manor-houses across the country, living and teaching in what appeared to be the set of Downton Abbey. For those who want to stretch their tutoring even further, there is the opportunity to work abroad. Fellow tutors I have met have worked with families in Moscow, Lagos, Monaco, China and America, living an all-expenses lifestyle and salaried at the same rate as a newly qualified Magic Circle lawyer. With roles currently available in Florence, Moscow and Greece, I am considering following suit.

I doubt that I will be a tutor forever, but before I commit myself to enslavement at the hands of Mighty Powerpoint, I am sharing my passion for my subject in outstanding surroundings. I’ll at least hold out till the guys at the scrap-heap (literal) realise the mistake they’ve made, and come crawling back…

Christopher Rumford

Cameron shames schools that “muddle through”

brightyoungthingstuition — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:15:42 +0000

Writing in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, David Cameron outlined his desire to narrow the “shocking gap between the best and the worst” state-schools in the UK. His most recent target, however, is a departure from the type of schools that his two flagship reforms, Free Schools and Academies, have previously focused on. The Prime Minister declares that his newest education drive will concentrate on schools, outside of the country’s major cities, that are currently happy to “drift along tolerating second best.” Cameron seeks to resolve what he sees as a “hidden crisis” in England’s “prosperous shires and market towns,” wherein schools, although not failing, are failing to maximise their students’ potential. It is an issue, according to the Prime Minister, just as troubling as the more blatant educational crises in the nation’s metropolises.

The Prime Minister is worried about a sense of “complacency” ingrained in these schools, and in particular the kind of environment wherein, “staff count down the hours to the end of term without ever asking why B grades can’t be turned into As.” Cameron desires to spread a new brand of engaged and energetic education, characterised by “the brilliant new generation of teachers” currently seeking to overhaul failing inner-city schools. It is a mission that Bright Young Things sits firmly behind, in line with our mantra that enthralling and inspiring teaching makes all the difference. It is also one that we are currently promoting with our upcoming partnership with the charity Action Tutoring, with whom we will be sending our own tutors to failing schools across the capital. If this philosophy and these kinds of schemes, as the PM clearly hopes, can be extended throughout the country, the benefits can surely be nothing but positive.

As Mr Cameron’s focus moves out of the inner-cities, however, there is something somewhat troubling about his assurance that his current reforms amount to a “revolution” in inner-city education. A recent study, for instance, has raised serious doubts about how successfully Free Schools are actually dealing with issues of educational imbalance. The statistics, published in The Guardian this week, seem to suggest that the catchment-areas for free schools are skewed in favour of middle-class families, indicated by below average numbers of children claiming free-school meals (9.4%, against a national average of 18%). Moreover, questions have been raised regarding the running of Cameron’s Academies, with serious concerns noted in non-teaching staff’s salaries and schools’ accountability. The Guardian revealed this week, for instance, that only 38% of Academies filled out their financial return for the Department of Education (no longer compulsory), while the frequency of staff salaries of over £80,000 is somewhat worryingly 50% higher than in comprehensives. Freedom from syllabuses and the financial constraints of the state might well promote more independent and competitive schools, but it also leaves them very much at risk of financial mismanagement and an abdication of their accountability to those they are supposed to serve: local people, and local children.

Mr Cameron’s desire to tackle problems in the UK’s education system at large is indeed laudable. He must be very wary, however, that the reforms he has already introduced truly amount to the “revolution” that he believes they do. With 87 new Free Schools expected to open by September 2013 and increasing numbers of schools taking Academy status, the Prime Minister must be sure that his legacy in the education sector is not characterised by two ambitious experiments that failed.

Joshua Williams

Keeping the Young in Bright Young Things

brightyoungthingstuition — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:36:01 +0000

Hi, I’m Oli Eccles, Director of Education at Bright Young Things Tuition, and welcome to the first blog of the 2011-12 academic year!

Bright Young Things Tuition was created by Malachy Guinness and Woody Webster in 2007, and so it is fair to say that four years later we’re no longer spring chickens. We have tutors teaching nigh on every subject from 8+ to Graduate level, and provide private lessons and home schooling not only throughout the UK but internationally. We believe that our service has only improved over the last three years, as our private tutors collate and share their experiences and knowledge of every top school and university in the country, and many foreign institutions. Amongst our tutors we are fortunate to count public school teachers, professionals from the fields of law, finance and the media, and also certified national exam-board examiners.

We have a few miles on the clock now, it is true; should we consider re-branding ourselves Bright Mature Things? Whack BMT into Google and you will discover that competition for the acronym is strong: Defensive Services, Engineering consultancy and a time zone… Luckily we need not take such drastic action. BYT is proud to take on the brightest graduates as new tutors each year, ensuring that we are always ready to provide quality tuition which draws upon fresh and recent experience of the exam syllabuses and Oxbridge interview processes. In the office, I might hold up my own hand as evidence of Bright Young Thing’s regenerative properties: my arrival as a new Director of BYT has pulled the average office age down by a couple of years. First task? Airbrushing the wrinkles out of Woody and Malachy’s website mug-shots.

Yet to focus on ourselves in this way is not only narcissistic, it is also a misreading of our name. Certainly, our tutors are all Bright Young Things. But it is also our pupils who earn this moniker. It is they who put in the extra study, who seize the opportunity to develop their enthusiasm for a subject and who collect the exam results that certify them to be the successes of the future. So, as the new term starts, we’re not just looking forward to employing a few more Bright Young Things, we’re looking forward to making some!

It seems like the secret to eternal youth is Bright Young Things Tuition.