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GCSE & A-Level tutoring  ·  Exam Consultation  ·  Oxbridge Preparing for predicted grades, or a final exam?

We deliver tailored exam preparation, consultation, and strategy to students doing GCSEs and A-Levels, in the United Kingdom or at British schools overseas.

Book an Exam Consultation Enquire about tutoring

From £395  ·  Full refund at any time before the paper is sent

GCSE  ·  A-Level  ·  Oxbridge

An exam checked, a subject taught, an application made.

For students aged 11 to 18 in the UK and abroad, working towards a mock, a final exam, or a place at Oxford or Cambridge. Each can be taken on its own; they are built to work together.

Rows of desks set out in an examination hall

For a mock or a final exam

The Exam Consultation

A full paper written to your child’s board and set texts, sat at home to time, then marked by hand and explained in writing — before the exam that decides a sixth-form place or a university offer.

  • —The marked script, a written analysis, a personalised learning plan, and a top-grade rewrite of every essay answer
  • —Your first instructions within 2 hours; marking back within 48 hours of the script arriving
  • —From £395, with a full refund at any time before the paper is sent
Book an Exam Consultation
A pen writing on a page of notes

Week by week

1:1 tutoring

English Language, English Literature, Spanish, and French at GCSE and A-Level, taught one to one online by academic consultants, to the standard our Academic Director sets.

  • —A live one-to-one session every teaching week, with the work marked in pencil on a shared screen
  • —Practice questions set every week against the paper they sit next, marked by hand and returned
  • —Blocks of 6, 12, or 24 teaching weeks; school holidays do not count against them
Enquire Now
The Radcliffe Camera in Oxford

For Oxford and Cambridge applicants

Oxbridge admissions

One-to-one coaching through both halves of a competitive application, from an experienced Oxbridge admissions consultant who went through it herself.

  • —The written application: the three UCAS questions and any written work the course asks for
  • —Interview preparation: practice at being pushed on what you have just said
  • —No offer or place is promised, and we are not affiliated with any university
See Oxbridge admissions

Together

The usual place to start is an Exam Consultation, because it shows exactly where the marks are going. Its learning plan becomes the first weeks of tutoring, so nothing is taught twice. Oxbridge applicants add admissions coaching alongside, so the subject, the written application, and the interview are all being prepared at once.

  1. How it works

    From a disappointing mock to a plan that fixes it.

    Twelve steps, in the order they happen. Nothing is machine-marked: the paper, the marking, and every document are the work of an academic consultant.

    01 / 12  ·  The problem

    A mock comes back as a number and a few ticks.

    Your child worked hard, and nobody can say where the marks went. A teacher with thirty scripts has minutes for each one, and predicted grades are about to be built on the result.

  2. 02 / 12  ·  Two minutes

    You book online, and pay on the next screen.

    The subject, the level, the board, and a few lines on where the marks are going missing. Payment is taken by Stripe; we never see your card. Cancel for a full refund at any time before the paper is sent.

  3. 03 / 12  ·  Within 2 hours

    Your first instructions arrive.

    What to expect, each part of the process, and how the paper is to be sat and returned: typed into our document, or written by hand and photographed or scanned. If anything on the booking needs settling, we ask now.

  4. 04 / 12  ·  Within 48 hours of payment

    A paper written to their board and their texts.

    Not a past paper printed off. It is written against the specification they sit, weighted the way the real paper is weighted, and it arrives by email with an instructions pack for sitting it.

  5. 05 / 12  ·  At home, to time

    They sit it in full, under exam conditions.

    The whole paper, to the time limit. If the time runs out they keep going, finish it, and write down exactly how far over they went. It is common and nothing to be embarrassed about: timing can be fixed once it can be seen.

    A student writing out an answer by hand at a desk
    Handwritten is welcome: photograph the pages and send them.

  6. 06 / 12  ·  Within 48 hours of the script arriving

    Marked by hand, on the iPad, line by line.

    In pencil, against the mark scheme the examiner will use, band by band. Every mark sits beside the line that earned it or lost it, with the reason written in the margin.

    Marking a specimen English Literature essay, at high speed.

  7. 07 / 12  ·  Document one

    The written analysis of the whole paper.

    Question by question: what earned the marks, what cost them, and what a top-band answer would have done differently. The marked script comes back beside it as a PDF.

    A page of a written analysis: the mark, the grade it is working at, the time taken, and a question-by-question breakdown
    From a sample analysis, written for a fictional student.

  8. 08 / 12  ·  Within the analysis

    What runs through their work.

    The habits and quirks that run through their work, not just this paper: the retelling where analysis should be, the context bolted on, the plan that gets skipped. The things a mark alone never shows.

    The page of an analysis setting out what runs through the paper, and an essay answer rewritten as one that would have taken top marks
    What runs through the paper, and every essay rewritten at top grade, to hold beside their own.

  9. 09 / 12  ·  Document two

    A personalised learning plan.

    Three objectives, in order: why each one, what to do each week, and how you will know it is working. A timeline to the examination and a plan for the room itself. Theirs to keep, whether or not anything else is booked here.

    A personalised learning plan setting out three objectives, with what to do each week and how to tell it is working
    From a sample learning plan, written for a fictional student.

  10. 10 / 12  ·  Free with the paper

    The shortest essay guide you'll ever need.

    Written by our Academic Director, Mrs Leah Burgess. Sent alongside the paper, and to every student taking 1:1 tutoring with us in a written subject.

    The cover of The shortest essay guide you'll ever need, by Mrs Leah Burgess

  11. 11 / 12  ·  If you chose it

    The 1:1 consultation, with the person who marked it.

    A calendar booking link comes back with the marked paper, and the student chooses the time. One to one on Google Meet, with the script on a shared screen: every part of the analysis heard from the person who wrote it, and active feedback on the spot.

    A laptop with a webcam set up for a one-to-one session
    The set-up for a 1:1 consultation.

  12. 12 / 12  ·  The problem, solved

    They walk into the real exam knowing exactly what to fix.

    A marked script, a written analysis, a learning plan, and a top-grade rewrite of every essay answer, all theirs to keep indefinitely. Before the examination that counts, not after it.

    Book an Exam ConsultationSee the prices

    From £395  ·  Full refund at any time before the paper is sent

Swipe or scroll sideways through the twelve steps.

Start here · from £395

A GCSE and A-Level Exam Consultation.

Not just a mark: the marked script, a written analysis, a learning plan, and every essay answer rewritten at top grade. It finds the weaknesses and shows how to fix them, before the examination that counts.

Paid when you book  ·  First instructions within 2 hours  ·  Full refund at any time before the paper is sent

What comes back

  • A paper written to their year, subject, board, and set texts
  • The marked paper as a PDF, marked by hand by an academic consultant
  • A separate document analysing the whole paper in writing
  • A personalised learning plan, with tailored objectives
  • Every essay answer rewritten at top grade

A 1:1 consultation session with the academic consultant who marked the paper, going over the exam, the marks, and the analysis, can be added when you book.

Not ready to book?

See exactly what comes back, first.

A real sample of the written analysis and the personalised learning plan, written for a fictional GCSE English Literature student, and the guide to what happens and when. On your screen the moment you ask, with nothing to pay.

  • The sample written analysis, question by question
  • The sample personalised learning plan, with its three objectives
  • What happens, and when: the whole process on one page

For parents and adult students. The sample is a fictional student; no child’s work is shown. Your address is used for nothing else, and never passed on. How we handle it.

Academic leadership

Led by Mrs Leah Burgess, Academic Director.

Our Academic Director, a University of Oxford graduate (St Edmund Hall), sets the marking standard and reviews every paper.

Read

Modern Languages at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford

Students

Tutored one to one in the UK and abroad for seven years and more

Schools

Private consultant to academy-run schools in the UK, supporting students who needed extra help

Oxbridge

Oxbridge admissions consultant

She holds an Enhanced DBS certificate and is the designated safeguarding lead. William Burgess, a director who does not teach, is the deputy. More about the practice.

Book an Exam Consultation

Our expertise

  • AQA
  • Pearson Edexcel
  • Eduqas
  • OCR
  • Cambridge IGCSE
  • AQA
  • Pearson Edexcel
  • Eduqas
  • OCR
  • Cambridge IGCSE

AQA, Pearson Edexcel, Eduqas, OCR, and Cambridge Assessment International Education are the owners of their respective names and marks. They are shown here to say which specifications are taught. The Russet Collective is not affiliated with, approved by, or endorsed by any awarding body.

The method

Write it, then defend it.

Your child's work is marked in pencil on a shared screen while they watch, and then they are asked to justify what they wrote. It is the Oxford tutorial method: a rehearsed answer does not survive the second question.

An essay on To Kill a Mockingbird being marked on an iPad, with a phrase circled and lines highlighted
An essay marked on the shared screen. A constructed specimen.

I

Read closely

Slowly, and with a pen. Most students have never been shown what close reading physically looks like — only told to do it.

II

Argue in writing

A claim that could be disagreed with, held for the length of an essay, in clean English — or clean Spanish, or clean French.

III

Defend it out loud

Under questioning, in the session. The part almost no student ever practises, and the part every examiner is looking for.

What happens on the screen

Both sentences are about the witches in Macbeth. One is the sort a student arrives at a session writing. The other is what comes out of an hour of being asked why.

A constructed specimen. Both sentences were written by us to show what the pencil does, not by a student. No student’s work appears on this site without a parent’s written permission.

Before

The witches are important in the play because they tell Macbeth about the future and this makes him want to be king, which shows the theme of ambition and the supernatural.

In the marginThree claims, none defended, joined by “which shows”. This is a sentence that has been taught rather than thought.
After

The witches never tell Macbeth to do anything. They tell him what he will be, and he is the one who turns a sentence about the future into a task. Banquo hears the same prophecy and goes to bed.

What changedOne idea, held. A comparison doing the work of an argument. No theme, no “shows”, and the last four words are a joke, which means the writer is enjoying it.

The same in Spanish and in French. The language changes; the question — what is claimed, and is it defended — does not.

What we do

Weekly 1:1 tutoring, and Oxbridge admissions.

English Language, English Literature, Spanish, and French at GCSE and A-Level, bought by the teaching week. Maths, the sciences, and the humanities are pending availability.

A student writing out an answer by hand at a desk

GCSE Programmes
(6, 12 or 24-Week Blocks)

Fees on enquiry

  • —Practice questions set every week against the paper your child sits next, marked by hand and returned
  • —Blocks of 6, 12 or 24 teaching weeks; 15% off a 12, 25% off a 24
See the subjects
Open books and handwritten notes on a desk in front of a bookshelf

A-Level Programmes
(6, 12 or 24-Week Blocks)

Fees on enquiry

  • —Built around the board your child actually sits — AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas, OCR
  • —Any two subjects together? 10% off both, on top of the block discount
See the subjects
The dome of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford against a blue sky

Oxbridge Admissions
(2027 Entry)

Fees on enquiry

  • —Both halves of the application: the statement and written work, then interview preparation
  • —No offer or place is promised, and we are not affiliated with any university
See the two phases

Fees depend on the level and the length of the block. Enquire, and the exact figures come back in writing with our reply.

By subject: English Language · English Literature · Spanish · French · Maths, Sciences, and Humanities (pending)

Enquire Now

Questions

What parents ask before they book.

Is the mark a predicted grade?

No. A mark on one paper is a measurement of one paper, sat once. We do not promise a grade, an offer, or a place — anyone who promises you one of those is selling something they cannot deliver.

Can my child write it by hand?

Yes, and most should: they will sit the real thing with a pen. Photograph each page on a phone and send those. Everything comes back the same, on the same clock, for the same fee.

Who marks it?

Every paper is marked by a subject specialist and reviewed by our Academic Director. Every mark is made by hand, and nothing is machine-marked. If anything in the marking is unclear, ask: explaining it is never charged for.

What if we change our minds?

You can cancel an Exam Consultation for a full refund at any time before the paper is sent. It is bought once: nothing renews and there is no account to close. The cancellation terms.

We live abroad. Does it work?

Yes. British families overseas sit the same GCSEs and A-Levels on the same boards. Nothing is posted: the paper arrives by email and the marking comes back the same way, and tutoring is set to suit your time zone.

How is tutoring taught?

One to one on Google Meet: a browser and a link, nothing to install. The work is marked on a shared screen, and a parent may sit in on any session without asking.

Do you prepare for entrance exams?

No. We teach from Year 7 upwards, but we do not prepare students for 7+, 8+, or 11+. Nor do we ghost-write: coursework and applications stay your child’s own.

What about Maths and the sciences?

Maths, the sciences, and the humanities are pending availability while we recruit an academic consultant for each. Join the waiting list and you will hear first.

Anything not answered here: write to us, and William answers himself. Nobody here works on commission.

Book an Exam Consultation

Start with a conversation.

A few short questions, about a minute, and you choose a time to speak to our Academic Director on the screen straight afterwards. There is no waiting to be telephoned, nothing to pay to enquire, and nothing is sold on the call.

Enquire NowBook an Exam Consultation

Or read about the practice first, or write to us instead.

Terms · Exam Consultation cancellation · Privacy · Safeguarding. Prices include everything described; nothing further is charged for an Exam Consultation once booked.