A little studio above the bookshop.
Quill Tutors started in 2009 when Eleanor Hartley, a former primary teacher, began helping a handful of neighbours' children with their reading at her kitchen table. Word got around, the table filled up, and within a year she had taken the two rooms above the old bookshop on Turl Street where we still teach today.
We have stayed deliberately small. Nobody here teaches to a script and nobody is rushed through a syllabus. A session might start with a bit of grammar and end with a conversation about a book someone couldn't put down, and that is rather the point: we want children to feel that the work is theirs, not something being done to them.
Over the years we have grown from one tutor to a team of four, added maths, science and languages to the timetable, and helped families through Key Stage assessments, the 11-plus, GCSEs and A-levels. What has not changed is the size of a group, the warmth of the rooms, or the biscuit tin by the kettle.
We are a five-minute walk from the market, we know most of the local schools by name, and we are happy to talk things through with parents before anyone signs up to anything. The first session is always free, and there is never any pressure to book a term.
