Questions about exam entry, syllabus code, school assessment and deadlines belong to your school or exam centre. Questions about how you learn, where you lose marks and what to work on are good to bring to individual tuition. Splitting them saves time and keeps each question with the person who can answer it.
This page gives you a checklist for each side and a worked example of preparing for a trial lesson.
Who is responsible for what?
| Area | Usually with |
|---|---|
| Exam entry, registration and deadlines | School or exam centre |
| Access arrangements | School or exam centre, with Cambridge rules |
| Results and certificates | Exam centre and Cambridge |
| Syllabus code and tier for your entry | School or exam centre |
| Internal tests, mocks and reports | School |
| Where you lose marks in a topic | School teacher and tuition teacher |
| Explaining a stuck topic a different way | Tuition teacher, or school teacher in class |
| Working at your own pace on gaps | Individual tuition |
We are not an exam centre. Entry and results belong to your exam centre and Cambridge, and the school is the first place to ask.
What should you ask your school?
- Which subject codes and tier or route am I entered for?
- Which exam series am I sitting, and what are the entry deadlines?
- When are the mock exams, and will I see my marked paper?
- Are there any coursework or practical components, with their dates?
- What is my current working level and which topics did my teacher notice are weak?
- Are there access arrangements I should ask about?
Write the answers down. They become your facts for the subject priority worksheet.
What is worth taking to individual tuition?
- Specific topics you keep getting wrong after trying.
- Questions where you know the content but lose marks on wording or structure.
- A need for a different explanation than the one you had in class.
- Planning how to use the weeks before an exam.
- Checking whether your method is efficient.
These are learning questions. A teacher who works with one student can watch how you think, which a class setting rarely allows.
Worked example: Ravi and the trial agenda
Ravi is in Year 10 and does Chemistry. He asks his school exam officer and learns he is entered for a particular code in the next series, and that his mock is in six weeks. That gives him facts for the trial.
Then he lists two sticking points: balancing equations and six-mark explanation questions. He finds one past question for each that he lost marks on.
He plans the one-hour trial roughly like this:
| Time | Focus |
|---|---|
| 5 minutes | Tell the teacher the code, exam year and what he wants from the hour |
| 25 minutes | Work through the equation question together |
| 25 minutes | Work through the explanation question together |
| 5 minutes | Agree what to try on his own before any next step |
The one-hour trial agenda builder produces a version of this that you can edit and print. It also reminds you to check the teacher’s actual rate before the lesson. The page is a planning aid, not a booking system.
Does tuition replace school?
No. School gives you the syllabus, the class, and the official route to your exam. Tuition adds individual attention on top.
The two can work together. A teacher can see what your school tests and help you approach it. What is arranged between lessons, how often you meet and what support looks like are agreed directly with your teacher after the trial.
What if your school and tuition teacher disagree?
Sometimes a school teacher and a tuition teacher explain a method differently. Do not choose by who sounds more confident. Check the method against your syllabus and mark scheme, or ask both to show where each method earns marks.
If the method is marked correctly either way, pick the one you can use without mistakes.
How do we start?
You send us the subject, code and exam year on WhatsApp. An experienced teacher is assigned, and the one-hour trial is a taught, paid class at that teacher’s confirmed rate, starting from RM80. The rate is confirmed before the lesson. See how it works.
If you are still deciding whether one-to-one fits, read one-to-one versus group tuition and which subject to enquire about first.
More in our decisions section.