LOCKDOWN 3 ANNOUNCEMENT – Important details

For the last seven years, our award-winning organisation has helped more families in the UK successfully homeschool their children than any other private institution. We’ve made our name in homeschooling and high quality tutoring. In lockdown 3, we’re here to help. 

In this announcement, we’ll go through:

• New customers – what we can offer you in terms of tutoring and homeschooling
• Mock exams & predicted grades
• Introducing our online school for GCSE pupils – it might be relevant for you
• Existing customers – what we recommend 
• Why now is not the time to stop using a tutor
• General tips for homeschooling at home

New customers

Firstly, welcome to Minerva Tutors. There are many reasons why you might be landing on us for the first time. 

• You don’t have the time to homeschool your kids yourselves – i.e you are working full time and you’re looking for help
• You aren’t happy with the level or quality of ‘lockdown work’ your child’s school is currently setting and want a more comprehensive, structured solution
• Your child needs extra motivation in order to work properly, on their own, at home
• Your child would benefit from an external professional voice to direct their homeschooling studies – i.e. someone who isn’t a parent 
• You’re currently unsure about hiring a private tutor to complement their school work, but you’d like to know more
• You’re happy homeschooling your kids yourselves, but you’d like some assistance with structuring lessons and where/how to find teaching resources, and/or your child may benefit from a meeting with a ‘mentor’ figure once a week

During this lockdown, we can do one of the following:

• take full responsibility for ensuring your child completes their school work and assignments
• if school work isn’t required, or isn’t necessary, or isn’t sufficient, our tutors can deliver an inspirational, highly educational school replacement programme (full or part time)
• work in partnership with you to share the teaching load
• let you get on with the teaching, and we’ll provide the support where you need it
• provide tutors to supplement the work they are getting from school 

Our services are suitable for:

• Kids between the ages of 5-18
• Catch up tutoring or exam focused
• Siblings close in age who would like to have joint classes

Based on our experiences from the past lockdown, our homeschooling support tutors are also very popular. These tutors don’t teach your child like a normal tutor – instead, they meet with you (the parent) on Zoom, perhaps once or twice a week, to help you organise and deliver the homeschooling yourself. All our support tutors are experienced homeschoolers themselves, so they know how to put together an effective, and – crucially – stress-free homeschooling programme. 

Homeschooling support tutors can help with:

• resources, such as providing worksheets and mock exam papers 
• teaching methods and ideas if you are new to teaching
• timetable management and creation
• checking in with your child once a week – either separate from you, or with you – to keep them motivated and answer any questions they may have about their studies

What is a Minerva tutor?

A Minerva tutor is a world class, inspirational private tutor that has hundreds of hours worth of experience in teaching and mentoring children between the ages of 5 and 18. 

They know how to:

• motivate your child through live online lessons
• keep your child engaged in their learning and not fall behind
• stimulate your child to broaden their interests and develop a thirst for knowledge 
• enhance your child’s determination to do well at exams and tests

Unlike other tutors, they are:

• experienced first and foremost in homeschooling (most have been homeschooling with families for the last five or six years)
• professional online tutors – all our tutors are experts at inspiring their tutees through live, virtual lessons
• real role models and likable, approachable, dynamic characters

At Minerva Tutors, we’re known for having a thorough application process for prospective tutors. We only work with those who reflect our values. During lockdown, we hope you can experience what we’re seeing as the ‘silver lining’ of the pandemic: the extraordinary impact 1-2-1 tuition can have on your child.

Tuition starts at £55/hour, depending on the tutors experience. 

Mock exams & predicted grades

Many parents ask whether we can provide mock exams and predicted grades. 

• We can arrange mock exams, at any level, for any child who has private tuition with us
• We can provide official predicted grades for pupils, if they are homeschooled with us full time, and don’t attend a regular school 
• We can’t provide official predicted grades for pupils if they attend a regular school

In some cases last year, parents decided to remove their children from school altogether and began homeschooling them with us full time. If you would like to follow this route, then we will be able to provide official predicted grades, through our bespoke progress reporting system, trusted professional tutors, and mock exam grades. In 2019, our predicted grades were accepted by the UK government as sufficient proof, and our private homeschooling candidates were able to receive their GCSE and A level qualifications.  

Have you considered our online school?

If your child is in year 9 or 10, you may like to explore the option of joining our online school for the duration of lockdown. It may be more suitable for your family, or more cost effective than hiring a private tutor. 

Minerva’s Virtual Academy is a fully-fledged independent school that exists entirely online. Our Spring term starts on 11th January. Pupils learn through a mixture of self-taught learning on our bespoke virtual learning platform and live group lessons with other pupils. While most of our pupils attend the Academy as their main, official school, we’re offering all new prospective ‘lockdown’ parents the option to sign up on a monthly basis, and you can cancel any time. Your child will benefit from a full GCSE school experience, plus weekly assemblies, after school clubs, and our innovative ‘World Changer’ programme. For more information, please visit the Academy’s website. 

If you do decide to register with the Academy, please make it known in the registration form that you’re interested in a temporary registration due to lockdown, rather than full time, and we can take it from there. 

Existing customers

If you are currently receiving GCSE or A Level tuition with us and you’re uncertain about the future regarding exams, our advice is not to cancel. 

This is because of our experience with the first lockdown in March 2020. Many parents did cancel tuition on finding out that the summer exams were cancelled, but then faced difficulties in hiring the same tutors again, as we had many new customers signing up for general tuition during that time. If you have a good working relationship with a tutor at the moment, we very much recommend you stick with your original tuition plans. While GCSEs and A Levels might not be happening in the way we are used to, alternative arrangements will be made. We also recommend maintaining a disciplined academic schedule for your child during this time, and there’s no better way to do this than to maintain tutoring with Minerva.

Tips for parents

If you are looking for general tips on how to homeschool your child at home, please see Part 2 of our homeschooling guide, and scroll to the bottom, where our tutors offer excellent strategies to keep your child focused and motivated throughout the process. 

Next steps…

If you’d like to get in touch to discuss any of the above, or any of our other services, please the form below, and we’ll get back to you within 1 working day.