Tomorrow’s Leaders: Georgia Slatner

University student Georgia Slatner on setting up her private tutoring business. For more information go to www.bespoketutors.uk

I grew up in Brent; Northwest London, raised by successful parents with a very academic sister, so I quickly realised how much I had to live up to. Educational standards in the borough were poor, so my parents sent me to a state secondary faith school near Kingsbury where, looking back, I received a high standard of education. I just didn’t really feel that at the time. Although my teachers were ambitious, interesting and often inspirational, it was clearly a struggle as they tried their hardest to mould educated adults out of disobedient adolescents.

As a result, I spent the first half of my secondary school journey feeling, as so many do, lost. I felt that my own way of learning clashed with rigid teaching styles and I was unable to gel with many of my teachers as a result of this.

At a year 9 parents evening, I remember being told by a science teacher that I would never get higher than a C grade and that my parents should be pleased if I passed. Whether or not I realised it at the time, his low aspirations stuck with me, solidifying my own reservations about my intelligence.

When Covid hit, things only got worse. Teachers were now navigating a totally different classroom full of wholly new challenges. They were faced with proactively handling students whose mental and physical health had drastically been changed by the world’s closure, without the training to do so. My lessons descended into havoc. Curriculums were abandoned, 1-2-1 help was minimal and exam preparation was entirely non-existent. For me and so many others, getting back on track to academic success was exceedingly difficult and frankly felt impossible.

I was fortunate enough that my parents were able to afford a tutor for me. My ongoing struggles with Mathematics had landed me in the very bottom set, seeing both my grades and confidence plummet. Through my fifteen-year-old eyes, simple mathematics was both more complex and testing than rocket science. Equations, graphs and charts blended together to form one big unsolvable puzzle. Yet, it was once I received tentative, dedicated and motivational tuition that the puzzle began to piece together. My queries and concerns were no longer lost in a sea of raised hands, and I was able to openly admit just how hard I was finding the subject.

In turn, I left my GCSE year with confidence, having received the crucial help that I needed to go on to study Politics, English literature and Psychology at my school’s outstanding sixth form. Not everyone I knew was lucky enough to have had the push I’d had from tuition and so that very summer, for just £15 an hour, I advertised myself as an English tutor.

I landed myself four clients in my first year which I was entirely pleased with. All of different ability, I did my best to regurgitate the English syllabus I had been taught just months before. I quickly picked up on the agenda of one of my students who plainly, did not want to be taught by an overly enthusiastic English geek. She’d sit in bed during lessons, scroll through her phone and would answer every question with an astounding ‘I don’t know’.

It pointed out to me just how fortunate I was. Her school’s pass rate was under 50% (compared to the 99% of my own) and her teachers often didn’t show to lessons or spent them disciplining students. Her parents had come to me as a cheaper alternative, and I was their last hope at salvaging her grades.

She’d decided long ago that she was not academic, intellectual or good enough for education and had begun to wonder if further education was necessary. Her parents turned to 16-year-old me for comfort and I feebly reassured them that I could help her pass, all whilst secretly having more doubt than I could admit.

My journey with this student is what inspired and does inspire all the work done by Bespoke. Through working together, showing her that we were indeed a team, changing the way she viewed her english ability and constantly supporting her no matter what tribulations came our way, I watched her achieve a grade 7 (A) and 8 (A*) in English literature and language. For her, this was so much more then superficial academic validation. This ignited within her that despite what she had been told at school – she truly was capable and highly intelligent. She went onto college in the autumn of 2024 and will be enrolling in University this September. I am still immensely proud of her.

I carried on tutoring throughout my A levels, but it was only in my first year of university that tutoring changed for me. I was accepted to the University of Bristol after achieving grades I had never believed I could have. I took up an offer to study Politics and Social Policy which I was delighted with. Tutoring was now not only a passion project, but it had also become my gateway to financial independence, funding my way through university myself.

Through gently badgering Facebook mothers group chats, I acquired a particularly large cohort of 20 students who I saw on a weekly basis. My lessons became safe learning spaces where students felt brave enough to make mistakes and show the courage to learn from them. My age meant that my students found it easy to relate to me as just a year or two before, I had been in their exact position, my room filled with many of the same past papers and revision notes that now occupied theirs. For some of my A level students, I had been in their position just 12 weeks prior – being able to provide them with the most tested and accurate revision advice and knowledge. It became quite wonderful to watch as throughout the year, so many students, who when given the patience and care, unlocked their inner writer. I observed students who had sworn off english – choose it for A level, achieve great results and find the love within the subject that I always had.

For so many students, their attitude to learning was overshadowed by a fear of failure which deterred them from trying their hardest. I slowly came to the realisation that intellect, albeit important, was not always the determining factor in success. For so many of my students, consistently providing them with reassurance and affirming that they were indeed both capable and smart – things began to shift. Their confidence within themselves began to shut out their self-doubt.

Bespoke came to me as I was sat in my university halls bedroom. A tutoring company that was characterised by my own foundations: flexible teaching patterns, inventive ways of communication and young students who knew exactly what exam boards were looking for. I hired tutors who were inspirational, taught resilience and drive and were just like me – university students operating out of enthusiasm and pure enjoyment of their subject. Bespoke are aiming to change tutoring from grades focused to skills focused, with more attention on nurturing strong and intelligent young adults rather than overworked prodigies.

Bespoke are paving the way for a new generation of students. We want to dismiss attitudes that reduce students to grades and encourage them to flourish as confident and spirited young adults who have access to safe learning spaces. We want to stand up for those struggling with self-esteem in education and who feel just like I did that education is not for them. At Bespoke we hope to do that one lesson at a time, slowly moulding a more understanding and patient education system.