Your English Tutor is set to expand after filling all available teaching places and gaining national attention for its small-group English tuition model.
The service is launching a new Revision Platform to support students preparing for the summer GCSE examinations.
Founder Claire Fennelly said: “The Revision Platform is something I am bringing in ready for the GCSEs and will look to do that every year thereafter, although that is something my current cohort already gets for free as part of the service. But I am at the point that I have no more live slots, I just don’t have room.”
With demand increasing, Fennelly plans to bring additional teachers into the business through her existing professional network.
She added: “I love teaching, I love English, it is what I do but I couldn’t go on like I was and we know many others are in that position. This is the narrative that’s happening on social media at the moment. From my own story I am showing that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you don’t have to give up teaching, there is another way. And I have teachers that want to work for me, so that will be the next step. But I am not bringing them in to do it for me, I won’t stop teaching – that is the point of this business.”
Fennelly’s teaching career spanned 15 years, culminating in her role as Head of English. Long hours and workload pressures led to major surgery in 2020, after which she returned to work within a fortnight.
“My consultants all said, you’re not going to last as a teacher. You’ll just keep coming back if you continue, and obviously that’s the kind of narrative around teaching at the minute. It’s not a rare scenario,” Claire said.
In 2023 she travelled to Ireland to care for her mother. After her mother’s death, a letter encouraged her to focus on her health and seek a different path.
“My mother left me a letter and in the letter she’d said ‘Please start looking after your health, if you ever need me step into the brightest light in the room.’ And that’s when I decided I’m going to quit teaching fully.”
She then founded Your English Tutor, drawing on the success of after-school small-group sessions that had delivered measurable improvements in exam results.
“When I was Head of English, my dream job, I ran these afterschool groups, it was free and my team did it for free, but these small sessions completely transformed the results. In one year we proved that the results improved by 20%.”
The business has since received the Biz4Biz Best New Business in Hertfordshire award and holds a five-star Google rating.
Its next phase will focus on increasing teaching capacity while maintaining its personalised approach.
