Cambridge graduate, qualified teacher / examiner / maths 7+ to GCSE / group and one to one sessions 

James was an excellent tutor. He has a strong understanding of the West London school system, is very good with children, and a great teacher. Highly recommended.

We couldn’t recommend James more highly. His lessons and guidance have been instrumental across the 13+ process. We are so pleased with the results and the offers received so far. Definitely reach out to James—don’t think twice about it!

Our son is from a state primary and with no tutoring he had passed 11+ for state grammars and ISEB for St Pauls and Eton. We were a bit unclear about the assessments and the preparations for the second stage of St Pauls 13+ admissions. With only a few weeks (6 weeks) before the assessment, we got in touch with James. In a fairly short notice, James helped us understand the process and helped our son with techniques to improve his persuasive writing skills. We could see a marked improvement in his writing and confidence level in the few sessions with James.

James is a highly experienced tutor. He helped my boy to prepare his English comprehension, creative writing, persuasive writing along with 11+ interview. His help was tremendously beneficial and lead to exceedingly satisfactory outcomes.

James was exceptionally helpful in helping our son practice for his secondary school interviews. He gave our son structure to think about topics he could be asked about.

James was a superb tutor for our son. He immediately identified his strengths and weaknesses and was very exam focused throughout. He gave excellent structure and strategies, particular to each exam style.

James has an extensive knowledge of the 11+ and was invaluable in assisting both our child and us through the process. Coming from a state primary, this was exceptionally helpful.

James bonded well and had an amazing rapport with our child. Our son genuinely looked forward to the sessions.

There is no way our child would have been so successful in his 11+ without James.

We’ve already booked him for our next child!

I interviewed many tutors and James was by far the most focused, knowledgeable and, above all, relaxed in his approach with children. You want your child to enjoy their sessions and he makes sure they’re having fun and learning at the same time!

James covers all the mains areas of exam prep with a careful and tailored emphasis on the more challenging aspects of story writing, problem solving, maths, exciting vocabulary and techniques for improving reasoning skills.

He offers regular feedback so you know exactly where your child is improving and what the expected outcomes are. Throughout this process you feel you are a partner and support in your child’s learning.

Work is scaled to ability and James carefully builds up their skills and confidence until the work during his sessions is more challenging than the assessments themselves. He teaches valuable techniques that helped my child solve problems quickly and clearly.

Regardless of outcome, my child has learnt valuable skills from James and we are in an excellent position thanks to his tutoring. I will update when we have results!

James is an incredible tutor. He brings a wealth of knowledge for 11+ exam prep and runs his sessions in a very engaging way. With his help, both of my children have passed entrance exams for very academically selective London independent schools - in fact, every single school we applied for. I have never seen a young child looking forward to a two hour English session - with James both of my children’s did! I highly recommend James as tutor.

James has tutored both my daughters for the 7 plus and 11 plus and I am constantly impressed by the high quality of his imaginative lessons. He is an excellent tutor and both girls enjoyed his lessons tremendously.

James was my son's tutor for approximately 6 months before his 11+. He is an amazing teacher who knew how to get the best out of my son. He made the lessons fun and engaging. He was extremely supportive throughout the process and therefore my son was full of confidence when it came to the exams. In fact he wishes he could still see James! I would highly recommend him!

We contacted James a few weeks before my son's 11+ exams and asked if he could assess our son, identify any weaknesses and address them in the few weeks left.

James was brilliant: he worked with my son for a couple of sessions, identified where he needed help, and helped him improve his skills, through targeted sessions and exercises.

James focused on Creative Writing and Grammar, and his help was beneficial and lead to an excellent outcome - offers for our 1st choice grammar and private schools.

Highly recommended!

James worked with my son to prepare him for his 11+ English exams. James showed him techniques to help him better prepare for the various papers he needed to sit. James was patient and always made my son feel that he was making good progress.

James is a top notch tutor that created 'sweet trouble' for us to make decision on whether SJS or WUS;)

His 'macro' control in terms of outlining the strength and weakness together with making a realistic study plan was a key to our 7+ success.

His commitment and attention to details were also excellent!

No hesitation for recommendations!

James has been working with my son for the past year to help him prepare for 8+ assessment at KCJS. His approach of going to the basics of how to tackle tricky comprehension questions and story writing worked for my son who was struggling with English a little bit. With maths and reasoning as well he was able to identify areas of improvement and work specifically on those. And his small end of session feedbacks were most valuable for me to understand how my son was progressing.

My daughter applied to a number of 'premier league' day schools and some boarding schools for entry this coming September. As the competition is becoming tougher, we decided to employ a private tutor. When I initially contacted James Mason, he replied very promptly which is always a good sign. When he came to meet my daughter, I already knew that he would be the perfect tutor - he was highly educated himself and came across as very friendly, patient and firm when he needs to be. My daughter went from being quite scared of doing complicated maths questions to being offered academic scholarships from 2 of the schools she had applied to, which was an amazing result. James was also full of tips about the schools we have applied to and what they are looking for in terms of their admissions procedure as well as interview techniques. At the end of all the exams, my daughter was offered a place at JAGS, Queen Anne's in Reading, St Catherine's in Guildford and Priors Field in Godalming. I would highly recommend James to anyone who needs a bit of help for 11+ exams.

James is very clear and specific in teaching his student on the exam skills. He is very strong in the English Literature analytic skills and is able to pass on the skills effectively in less than 10 lessons. He is patient and always give positive comments to encourage student to reach the next level.

James tutored our son for 18 months.

He is a fantastic tutor and built a great rapport with our son. He tailored his teaching to best fit our sons's needs and made a huge difference to his confidence and knowledge. We felt he took the time to get to know how our son and this has greatly benefited his learning.

James is reliable, patient and flexible. He provided great support and encouragement during the gruelling exam process and I have no hesitation in recommending him as a tutor.

James's assistance was invaluable in securing A* / A GCSE English grades for my son. He was patient and flexible and adapted his teaching style to my son's needs. It was very important for my son to get these grades in order to secure his place at St Paul's sixth form. James was also very knowledgeable regarding the school's application process and selection criteria.

James also works for Examberry, the 11+ educational consultancy of which I am Director and Managing Partner. He has taught classes covering Maths, English and Reasoning for the last few years and has been one of the most successful tutors we have ever had, helping secure places for dozens of students.

We got in touch with James regarding guidance with my son's comprehension passages for 11plus at a super selective school in London. James took 6 class for my son. James guided my son in understanding exam technique by getting my son to do some very good passages both in prose and poetry. My son found his guidance very positive and encouraging. James also took a mock interview which helped my son get into the right frame of mind. Thank you James !

James taught my daughter for her recent 11 plus examinations. He was absolutely brilliant. He is very bright yet totally humble and child friendly! He is reliable, timely, well presented, kind and extremely knowledgeable. He went out of his way, outside the session even, to present past papers and mark work. Her recent successes have been due to James help; especially bearing in mind, that however engaging, my daughter has mild dyslexia and ADHD and so was never going to be the easiest pupil! It did not phase James and he made an excellent rapport with my daughter; communicating her sessions directly with her which worked very well for us. I could not recommend him more highly.

James tutored our daughter for the 2014 11+ exams.
We found his approach to be very effective.
Whilst being kind and considerate, James managed to gain our daughter's full attention for the 90-120 minutes sessions which she actually enjoyed.
James had quickly a very good understanding of her strenghts and weaknesses and put in place a strategy to strenghten the areas for development.
He found a way to provide her/us with constructive feedback.
His experience with the 11+ exams for top London schools was also very valuable.
As a result, Zoe got offered 3 places.
I highly recommend his services.

James was invaluable to me in preparing for the Unit 4/Hume section of my philosophy A2 exam. My teacher at school had left us with something of a deficit of knowledge for this paper and James essentially had two weeks in which to teach to me Humes Enquiry, along with some possible criticisms and the essay technique required for the exam. He was absolutely brilliant in this regard, combining his ability to simplify and explain the more subtle points of Humes argument with a pragmatic approach to essay structure due to the very small amount of time we had to prepare. He helped me make notes on the text itself whilst also providing me with detailed and bespoke essay structures upon which to lay my own thoughts and the content of my essays. With his help not only did i achieve my first choice of university (Oxford) but i also achieved the first A* in philosophy at my school, in addition to receiving the highest mark in the year for the Unit four paper. I am in no doubt that without his help, my overall mark would have been horrendously dragged down by my lack of formal preparation for this paper. I cannot recommend him highly enough-efficent, friendly, organised and extremely intelligent.

James has been teaching our daughter since last year, he is well qualified, dynamic and enthusiastic. He has what it takes to be an exceptional teacher.

James is a superb teacher. He is very efficient, he knows how to approach his students to make them confident towards their subject. He was helping my son for his BMAT exam; essay writing, and Aptitude and Skills papers. I am so happy with him. I will recommend James to anyone.