About Fraley Tutors

I started Fraley Tutors on a simple observation. My own tutoring, all the way through university, went far better than I'd expected — and talking to other high-performing maths and physics students, I realised why. The same conversation kept coming up: “if I'd known this a couple of years ago, I'd have explained it completely differently.” People still close enough to a subject to remember exactly where it gets confusing, and talented enough to have properly understood it themselves, turned out to make unusually good teachers. That's the whole idea behind this company.

I felt it directly in my own subject. Mechanics is one of the first things you learn at GCSE and A-Level — and it's also something you study in far more depth at university, through vector calculus. Seeing that deeper structure doesn't just add complexity: in a lot of ways it reveals a simpler, more unified picture underneath the topic, and that insight genuinely helps explain the A-Level version more clearly, not just more rigorously.

I did well in my own exams — A*s in Maths, Further Maths and Physics at A-Level, then an MPhys in Theoretical Physics at the University of Manchester, where I graduated top of my class and picked up the John Wiley Book Prize, the Hatfield-Heginbottom Scholarship and the Franz Mandl Prize for exam performance and theoretical work along the way, before a Distinction in Part III of the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge. I'm now completing a PhD in theoretical particle physics, also at Manchester.

But what actually mattered, more than raw ability, was the time I put into building real understanding for myself, rather than just drilling exam technique the way a lot of my peers did. I've always believed consistent, reliable results come from genuinely understanding a subject, not from hacking the exam. What began as one-to-one tutoring has grown into a team of ten specialist tutors, all high-performing maths and physics students at leading UK universities. I personally interview and select every one of them — not only for academic excellence, but for genuine passion for the subject, a real passion for explaining it well, and a patient, kind way of teaching. They have to share the belief that understanding, not exam hacks, is what actually works.

What I'm really trying to do is take the standard of teaching, understanding, and passion you find at the best universities, and bring it down to a much younger age group. I had an A-Level physics teacher whose passion for the subject was genuinely infectious — watching someone teach a subject they truly love changes how you see it, and it can unlock a lot in a student who hasn't found that yet. That's what I want every Fraley Tutors student to get.

We've also built a purpose-built platform — serious technology, designed to support our tutors rather than replace them. It gives each tutor a clear, up-to-date picture of every student's progress that they review before every lesson and build a genuine long-term plan around, homework built by hand from a large bank of exam-style questions chosen for that student's exact exam board, and instantly-marked work so your tutor catches misunderstandings the same day. The platform keeps the long view; the strategy, the judgement, and the teaching are all your tutor's.

I still take on the occasional student directly, by request — it's not a standard part of what we offer, but if you'd like to ask about working with me personally, get in touch and I'm happy to talk it through.