Category: Tutoring Advice

When parents first consider IGCSE English tutoring, the instinct is often to wait until closer to the exam — January or February, perhaps, when the pressure is starting to build. But tutors with experience working with IGCSE students consistently recommend starting in September. Here’s why it makes such a difference.

English Skills Take Time to Build

This is the fundamental reason. Maths tutoring can sometimes produce rapid results — a clear procedure, practised until it’s reliable. English doesn’t work that way. Analytical writing, close reading, quotation analysis, essay structure — these are skills that develop gradually through repeated practice and specific feedback. A student who starts in September has 7–8 months to build these skills. A student who starts in February has 2–3 months. The September student develops genuine competence; the February student improves their exam technique but may still have underlying skill gaps.

Early Tutoring Catches Problems Before They Compound

In English, gaps compound. A student who doesn’t understand how to structure analytical paragraphs in Year 10 will carry that gap into Year 11, and it will show up in every essay they write. A student who hasn’t developed inference skills will struggle with every comprehension question in every exam. Identifying and addressing these gaps in September of Year 11 — or even Year 10 — means they can be fixed properly rather than patched hurriedly.

Less Pressure Means Better Learning

September tutoring happens without the weight of imminent exams. The student isn’t anxious; the tutor isn’t in crisis mode. This allows slower, more thorough development of skills — time to experiment, to write badly and understand why, to revise and improve without deadline pressure. By the time exams approach, the student is genuinely prepared rather than desperately cramming.

Consistency Builds Confidence

A student who has attended regular sessions since September arrives at exam season with a relationship with their tutor, familiarity with the material, and a track record of improvement they can point to. That is qualitatively different from the anxiety of a student who started in February and is still trying to absorb material they don’t yet feel confident with. Confidence in an exam is built over months, not weeks.

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Thorogood English opens for January 2027 — which gives students a full exam season of consistent support before their IGCSE and A-Level exams. Join the waiting list now to secure a place.

Every English teacher says it. Every study confirms it. Children who read for pleasure perform better in English — and in most other subjects too. But knowing it doesn’t tell you how to actually get a reluctant child to pick up a book. Here’s what works.

Let Them Choose

The single biggest mistake well-meaning parents make is steering children towards “quality” books before the reading habit is established. A child who reads every Wimpy Kid book is a reader. A child who has been told Wimpy Kid is beneath them and who therefore doesn’t read anything is not. The habit comes first. The quality comes later, naturally, as taste develops. Let them choose — whatever they want, within reason.

Read Aloud — For Longer Than You Think

Reading aloud to children doesn’t stop being valuable when they can read themselves. Many children who find reading effortful will happily listen to a story read well — and listening to good prose builds vocabulary, comprehension, and a sense of story in exactly the same way that independent reading does. Read aloud to your children as long as they’ll let you. The conversation it generates is also genuinely valuable.

Make Books Visible and Accessible

Children read what’s available. Books that are visible, accessible, and in appealing locations — bedroom, living room, the back seat of the car — are more likely to be picked up than books that live in a box or on a high shelf. Library visits make a bigger difference than most parents expect: the sheer variety of choice, and the child’s ownership of the selection process, changes the relationship with books.

Model It

Children who see their parents reading are more likely to read themselves. This doesn’t mean performing reading ostentatiously — it means genuinely reading, and occasionally talking about what you’re reading in a way that communicates that it matters and that it’s enjoyable. “I read something really interesting today” is more powerful than “you should read more.”

Don’t Turn Reading Into a Reward or a Punishment

“Read for 20 minutes and then you can have screen time” makes reading a chore to be completed before the real reward. “No screen time until you’ve read” makes it a punishment. Both frame reading as something external to be endured rather than internal to be enjoyed. The goal is for reading to feel good in itself — and that requires protecting it from instrumental framing for as long as possible.

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At Thorogood English, we share book recommendations with every student — building the reading life that underpins everything else. See our Recommended Reading list for ideas across all ages. Join the waiting list for January 2027.