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Education · Training / instruction

David Coombes tuition

One-to-one and one-to-many tuition using story and analogy to educate. From primary school through SATS, GCSE, adult ed, and businesses wanting training support (eg. training staff on percentages).

I'm a professional, dedicated tutor who's business started nine years ago with a request to tutor a girl for maths, and grew entirely by word-of-mouth recommendations to become my livelihood. I specialise in giving one-to-one and one-to-many support with a unique perception of my students and subjects that ensures they always understand and achieve their best, given in an informal, relaxed, and patient manner that helps overcome any psychological reservations that may be holding them back. Focus is on understanding, with analogy and story being key to my success. Tales of sabre-toothed people farming sabre-toothed bunnies and inventing numbers and words illustrates the thought patterns behind the evolution of our modern thinking so that it all makes sense rather than being random squiggles and learnt-by-rote techniques.

As a naturally creative problem-solver, I excel at finding specific solutions to teaching problems. For example, on my initial visit to 7 year old E.L. (later diagnosed as severely dyslexic), I encountered for the first time someone who would often write digits back-to-front. Thinking about this on the journey home, I realised this was the brain being smart and recognising the same shape regardless of orientation - it's only convention that requires the digits to face a certain way. For the next lesson I created a set of digit-bird designs to illustrate which way they should face. Coupled with a pack of Chewits each lesson which were hers to eat, except when she wrote a digit backwards I would eat one, E. quickly learnt to write her digits correctly!


One-on-one student tuition in your home for any age covering primary and secondary Maths, English, and some science up to SATS/GCSE.

In particular:

  • Younger students leading up to SATS and/or who find maths stressful.
  • Gifted students wanting to achieve their full potential without being held back by limited school structures.
  • GCSE students wanting preparation in exam technique and thought processes.
  • Older students and GCSE retakers, needing better support than the schools give.

Adult education

  • Anything from brushing up maths skills to improving your English for better communication in the workplace.

Corporate training.

  • Training in core skills and techniques, such as understanding and calculating percentages for retailers.
  • Specialist training solutions to convey any knowledge or process, where I create bespoke analogy and story.

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