Why I built Tutor Island

Tutor Island is small and new, and right now that means me. I am building it in the open, one careful stage at a time, because I would rather do a few things properly than promise everything at once.

I started this after seeing how much of what families pay for tutoring disappears into platform commission, lesson after lesson, and how little say parents often have in how first contact with a tutor happens. I wanted to build the opposite of that.

Two things sit at the centre of Tutor Island, and everything else follows from them.

The first is no commission. Tutors set their own rate and keep every penny of it. Instead of taking a cut of each lesson, we charge a one-off £9.99 when a student chooses to connect with a tutor and unlock their contact details. After that, the arrangement is theirs, not ours.

The second is safeguarding. Children use this platform, so safety is not a feature bolted on at the end, it is the constraint the rest of the design answers to. Every tutor passes an Enhanced DBS check, reviewed by a person, before their profile is ever visible. Every message is screened before it is delivered, contact details stay hidden until a family chooses to connect, and parents are part of the process for under-18s.

I am not going to invent numbers or borrow testimonials we have not earned. Tutor Island is early, and I would rather be honest about that than impressive about it.

So here is the promise instead: every tutor is DBS-checked before they appear, every message is screened, we never take commission on a lesson, and families stay informed at every step. When there are real words from real families and tutors to show you, they will appear here, clearly and truthfully. If we ever fall short of this, I want to hear it.

You can reach me directly at support@tutorisland.co.uk.

Sarah, founder of Tutor Island

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