Laura Kavanagh

I prepare pupils for entrance tests, and I spend as much time on nerves as on papers. Practice matters, but it should not swallow the whole year. A pupil who does one short timed section on a Tuesday and then plays outside has usually learned more than one who grinds through a full paper every evening. I teach timing with a kitchen timer: start it, answer four questions, stop, check. Then we talk about the choices, not the score.

My lessons cover reading comprehension, verbal reasoning, maths and the written tasks that some local schools still set. We work from a small set of question types, and I show pupils how to spot the trap in a wordy instruction. If a child freezes, we go back to the first line and read it aloud. Online lessons use a shared screen; home lessons use the kitchen table and a pencil. Either way, the parent gets a short progress report on what is steady and what needs another go.

I am DBS-checked and qualified, and I teach pupils from age 9 upwards. My rule is simple: no extra mock tests in the week before the real thing. Rest is part of preparation. I would rather send a child in calm than tired. That is the philosophy behind every plan I write.