Six pupils, two teachers: small group 11+ tuition in Winslow

What is the pupil to teacher ratio at Clever Clogs Academy?

We cap every group at six pupils to two qualified teachers. That is a ratio of 3:1, and we publish it on our fees page rather than keep it as a vague promise.

Clever Clogs Academy is a family-run tuition business in Winslow, Buckinghamshire. Alicia and I are both qualified, DBS-checked and paediatric first aid trained, and we lead every session of four or more pupils together, in our own dedicated tuition space.

"Small group" is one of the least defined phrases in tuition. It can mean four children. It can just as easily mean fourteen. Because the phrase carries no fixed meaning, I would rather publish the number.

How much teacher attention does each child actually get?

An 11+ session at Clever Clogs Academy in Winslow runs for 90 minutes with two teachers present, which is 180 teacher-minutes in the room. Shared between six children, that comes to about 30 minutes of qualified teacher attention each.

The sum is deliberately simple. You can run it on any tutor, in any town, and I would encourage you to.

Teacher-minutes are not the same as one-to-one minutes, and I would not want to suggest otherwise. A good part of every session is whole-group teaching, and children genuinely learn from hearing another child reason a question aloud. What the sum tells you is the ceiling: the most individual attention that is even possible in that room.

The final two rows are illustrative arithmetic rather than a description of any particular provider. Run the sum on whichever setting you are actually considering.

Why six pupils, and not ten?

Six is where the evidence starts to turn. The Education Endowment Foundation, an independent charity that reviews what works in education, defines small group tuition as one adult working with two to five pupils. It reports that once group size climbs above six or seven "there is a noticeable reduction in effectiveness" (Teaching and Learning Toolkit, review last updated July 2021).

At six pupils to two teachers, each of us is working with three children. That sits inside the EEF's definition rather than stretching it.

I spent more than ten years in primary schools, much of it as a senior leader. The thing I could never solve, however good the teacher, was a class of thirty and one adult. You can plan brilliantly for thirty children and still not reach the child who has quietly stopped understanding in week two. When Alicia and I set this up, the group size was the first decision we made, and we made it before we worked out whether the numbers added up for us.

The same EEF review is careful about something I think parents deserve to hear. It notes that the quality of teaching in a small group may matter as much as, or more than, the precise number of children in it. Six children badly taught will not beat ten children taught well. The number buys the opportunity for attention. It does not create the teaching.

Is small group tuition better than one to one for the 11+?

Neither is straightforwardly better, and any tutor who tells you otherwise is selling you the thing they happen to offer.

The Education Endowment Foundation puts one to one tuition at five additional months' progress a year across 123 studies, and small group tuition at four additional months across 62 studies (Teaching and Learning Toolkit, review last updated July 2021). Both reviews are rated as moderate in evidence strength. The EEF also reports that studies comparing the two show mixed results, with groups of two or three sometimes matching or beating one to one.

Two honest caveats belong here. Those figures come from school-based tuition studies rather than 11+ preparation, so they describe the approach rather than the Transfer Test. And no tuition of any kind, ours included, can promise a particular outcome.

There is one argument specific to the 11+. Children sit the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test in a room full of other children, working to a clock, on two papers of about 60 minutes each (Buckinghamshire Council, checked 28 August 2026). A child who has only ever worked one to one at a kitchen table has never rehearsed that.

One to one still suits some children better. A child with one specific gap to close, or one who finds any group setting genuinely distressing, may do better with individual sessions. If I think that is your child, I will say so.

What difference does a second teacher make in the room?

The second teacher changes what can be noticed, and 11+ preparation lives or dies on what gets noticed early.

Take non-verbal reasoning. A child rotating a shape the wrong way round will often arrive at an answer that looks entirely reasonable on the answer sheet. You cannot catch that by marking. You catch it by watching the pencil while the child works, and one teacher watching six children at once will miss it. Two teachers watching three each will not.

Alicia teaches alongside me in every group session, and between us we pick up things neither of us would catch alone. A child who is decoding the question rather than reasoning about it looks identical to a child who is stuck, until you are close enough to tell the difference. That child does not need the method explaining again. They need the question read differently.

The other difference comes after a timed section. With two of us, the group can split: one takes the three children who need the method taught again, the other moves the remaining three onto harder questions. A single teacher has to choose which of those to do, and whichever they choose, half the group waits.

That is the whole reason we staff sessions the way we do. It is also why we cap the group at six rather than filling the room.

How to check any tutor's ratio for yourself

Ask any tuition provider three questions, and you can work out what your child is actually being offered.

1. What is the maximum number of children in the group? Not the average, and not the number today. The maximum.
2. How many adults are in the room, and are they qualified teachers? A qualified teacher, a teaching assistant and an undergraduate are all doing valuable work, but they are not the same thing.
3. How long is the session?

Then run the sum:

adults × session minutes ÷ children = teacher-minutes per child

A provider who cannot answer the first question with a number has told you something useful. I would rather you asked us that question than took our word for it, and I would rather you asked every other tutor on your list too.

Run the sum on us

I would rather you checked than trusted. Our numbers are on the fees page: six pupils, two qualified teachers, 90 minutes. If the answer looks right for your child, come and see a session work.

What does small group 11+ tuition in Winslow cost?

11+ Transfer Test tuition at Clever Clogs Academy in Winslow is £50 a week for a 90-minute session, for pupils in Years 4 and 5 (fees page, checked 28 August 2026).

The weekly fee is all inclusive. It covers the session with both of us, weekly homework, online resources and video lessons for revision, weekly parent notes, half-termly progress reports, termly parents' evenings, an equipment pack, and the cost of the 11+ mock tests. Sessions run for roughly 46 weeks of the year, through term time and into the half-terms and holidays.

You can see the full fee table, including our Maths and English sessions for Years 1 to 6, on our fees page, and what a session actually covers on our 11+ programme page.

Come and see a session

The honest way to judge a tuition group is to watch one work.

Book a free introductory session at our Winslow tuition space. Your child works one to one with one of us on a short piece of 11+ work while you sit down with the other and talk through where they are, what the Transfer Test actually asks, and whether a group of six is right for them.

There is no call centre here. You will get Alicia or me, and we will tell you honestly whether we think we can help.

Book a free introductory session · See our 11+ programme · About Mat and Alicia