Sussex House School Entrance Guide

Shu is an exceptional tutor. Whereas we had a daily fight to get our son to focus ahead of his 8+ exams, she seemed to have him eating out of her hand within days. She made the lessons fun, tuned into areas he needed help on, and worked out how to get him to improve them. We firmly believe that had our son not had Shu on his side, he wouldn't have been offered a place at Westminster Under.

We met Shu nine months before our son sat the 8+ exams. He has a curious mind, and we felt he had the potential to do very well, but his school were ambivalent about his chances of getting into one of the leading London Junior schools, and the daily fights to get him to do any extra work were extreme, often involving tantrums, slammed doors, shouting, and the rest. When Shu walked through our front door, in March 2023, we thought she'd last two minutes - she seemed strict and we expected the tantrums to escalate. How wrong we were! Shu has a magic learning flute, and even our son was unable to resist it's tune. From the get-go, she 'got him'. After the first few sessions, she gave us a more acute assessment than the teachers who'd known him for years ever had. And while our son still complained constantly about doing anything extra with us, over the following nine months he accepted Shu's word as gospel - sometimes calling her himself to ask whether he should do A or B as we requested! More than that, he really enjoyed his lessons, and I'd often look in to see them both roaring with laughter over a shared, private joke. Shu believed in and enjoyed our son in a way no-one had before, and as a result I think he started to believe in himself. She was also an invaluable sounding board for us, often calming us down when we worried that he was not up to it, or that his confidence would suffer, at all times reminding us that she believed he had what it took, whether it was this round or the next. And her belief in him was contagious. By the end of January 2023, our son had an offer from his first choice school, Westminster Under, as well as from other top London prep schools, and I'm 100% confident that this would never have happened had we not met Shu!