For students in Durham who find maths difficult — and it's one of the most commonly struggled-with subjects — targeted focused support makes a measurable difference. Topics like fractions and decimals and ratio and proportion trip students up year after year. Our experienced educators break these concepts down, fill gaps from earlier years, and build towards exam-ready confidence.
Getting Started
Maths confidence is built one session at a time. Reach out to us to find the right tutor for your son or daughter in Durham — someone who can turn confusion into clarity and anxiety into real progress.
Grade Improvement
Most students who work with a tutor weekly for a term see a noticeable improvement — typically one to two grades at GCSEs level. We track progress through regular topic tests and past-paper scores. But it's not just about grades: students also develop better problem-solving habits, stronger mental arithmetic, and the confidence to tackle questions they'd previously skip. For parents in Durham, that shift from "I can't do maths" to "I worked it out" is often the most valuable outcome.
Topics We Focus On
The most common areas where Durham students need maths support are fractions and decimals, ratio and proportion, and number work. These topics build on each other — a shaky grasp of fractions and decimals often leads to problems with algebra later on. Our experienced educators identify exactly where the chain broke and work forward from there. For GCSEs students, we also focus heavily on exam readiness: showing working, time management, and understanding how marks are allocated on OCR papers.
Maths at Durham Johnston Comprehensive School
Schools in Durham typically use OCR or AQA for their maths specifications. Our experienced educators know both, and they'll match their teaching to whichever syllabus your son or daughter follows. This means practice questions, sample papers, and revision materials are all relevant to the exact exam your son or daughter will sit — not generic content from a different board. At Durham Johnston Comprehensive School, we're familiar with how topics are sequenced and where students most commonly need extra support.
Beyond the Classroom
There is strong evidence that focused instruction is the most effective form of teaching — and in Durham, families see this in practice. A dedicated tutor adapts explanations until they click, sets the right level of challenge, and notices immediately when understanding starts to slip. This responsive approach is simply not possible in a class of 25-30, which is why targeted tutoring often achieves in weeks what months of classroom teaching cannot.
Building Good Study Habits
Effective studying is a skill that many pupils were never explicitly taught. A good tutor does not just explain the subject — they model how to approach unfamiliar material, how to self-test, and how to manage time during revision. For Durham learners, these habits compound over time, meaning the benefit of focused teaching extends well beyond the immediate grades.
The Tutoring Process
Each session lasts around an hour. The tutor works through concepts with your son or daughter, sets practice problems, and reviews previous work. There's no one-size-fits-all script — sessions are shaped by what the student actually needs that week. For students preparing for GCSEs, we use sample papers from OCR to build familiarity with the format. For younger students, we focus on number confidence, mental arithmetic, and problem-solving strategies. Progress is shared with parents so you can see improvement building week by week.