About · The Oxford Tutors Method
We don’t have a curriculum. We have a student.
Ask most tutoring companies how they teach and you get a program. Ask us and you get a question back: who is the child? Everything we do starts there. We call it the Oxford Tutors Method: one student and one tutor, thinking out loud together, the oldest idea in teaching.
What never changes
Five things we do, every time.
- 01
Start with the student
Before a single lesson, we work out how this particular mind moves, and we meet it where it is, not where a grade level says it ought to be.
- 02
One tutor, matched by hand
A single senior tutor, chosen for the subject and the temperament. Most families keep the same one for years. That continuity is the point.
- 03
Ask, don’t tell
We teach by question, not by lecture. The student does the thinking; the tutor makes the thinking possible. That is the whole of the method.
- 04
Teach the whole student
Focus, follow-through, the nerve to try: the things underneath the schoolwork get built into the schoolwork, not bolted on beside it.
- 05
Watch the growth, not the grade
We track whether a student is becoming a real thinker. The scores climb too. They just aren’t the thing we’re aiming at.
Why it fits learning differences
Teaching that bends to the child, instead of asking the child to bend.
A classroom teaches thirty children one way and hopes each one fits. We teach one. So nothing has to be standard, and nothing has to be forced. For a child who learns differently, that isn’t a nicety. It’s the whole reason it works. The method fits learning differences precisely because it was never built for the average learner.
- Personal by design
- No standard mould to fit
- Built for how they think
Who directs it
Elisabeth Gray
Founder & Director
Oxford and Yale educated, and raised in the one-to-one tradition. Elisabeth founded Oxford Tutors in 2005 and still directs how it teaches. She keeps its partnerships with clinicians and schools, and she trains every tutor who joins.
- Oxford University BA (Hons), English Literature & Language
- Yale University M.Div, Theology & Literature
Our Tutors
The people who carry the work.
A small, senior bench. Most have been at this for a decade or more, and hold degrees from the places our families are aiming toward. We match on subject and on temperament, and we tell you who we have in mind on the first call.
East Coast Director
Neil
College Admissions, Executive Functioning Support, Parent Coaching, Anxiety Management
Middlebury, Columbia · 13 years
Director of Academics
Jay Ben
Learning Differences Support, Parent Coaching, Admissions Strategy
Dartmouth · 10 years
West Coast Director
Chase
Test Preparation Specialist
Whitman, Fordham Law · 13 years
Senior Tutor
Ben
Test Prep, Academic Tutoring, Admissions Strategy, Financial Literacy, Post-College Transition Support, Learning Differences Support, Anxiety Management
Haverford, UCLA Law · 7 years
Senior Tutor
Ellie
Learning Differences Support, Executive Functioning, UK Admissions
Oxford University · 5 years
Senior Tutor
Spencer
College & Graduate Admissions Strategist, Writing Specialist, Great Books (High School & College)
Yale University, Notre Dame (PhD) · 7 years
Senior Tutor
Nic
Writing Specialist, Great Books (Middle School Division)
Yale University · 8 years
Which tutor is right for your child depends on the year ahead, so we name names once we’ve heard the whole picture. Those conversations stay in confidence.