Revolutionizing Top Tutoring for Elite Schools!

July 14, 2014 - PRLog -- The launch of an exclusive online learning platform saw tremendous success in helping students get into their dream boarding schools. Bridgepoint, a revolutionary education service that facilitates cross-cultural and cross-border learning, connects students with elite teachers from top UK institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews. Three students give tips on how they gained entrance to 11 top boarding schools in the UK.

Attending boarding schools abroad has always been a popular option among students in Hong Kong. As an increasing number of Asian students apply to boarding schools in the UK, even students with remarkable results applying to elite boarding institutions such as Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse, and Benenden now face heightened pressure and more intense competition from their peers. It is commonly observed that parents and students spend huge amounts of effort preparing for various types of entrance examinations in addition to public examinations like A-Levels and IBDP. The drilling and exam practices, while useful at times, often drain students of their passion for learning.

Three students, Katie, Polly, and Timothy, share their thoughts on getting multiple offers from top boarding schools.

Katie has received final offers from Cheltenham Ladies College, Headington, Woldingham, and Queenswood. She has also been granted a full scholarship from Badminton School. A F.5 student from St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, she sought help from Bridgepoint to prepare for UK boarding school entrance exams. Apart from taking the DSE curriculum at school, she also took up iGCSE and A-levels classes in Geography, Economics, English and Mathematics. She commented that the tutors had helped her immensely with covering GCSE topics not touched upon in DSE. One such tutor is L, an Oxford graduate who teaches Katie Economics. ‘L is very knowledgeable about the UK and he teaches about local issues happening in the UK, such as what the UK Parliament has done, the EU, Ukraine, while I speak to L about the Hong Kong government,’ Katie commented. Another tutor of Katie, Callum Cheatle, teaches beyond textbooks. Callum is a keen traveller and often shares stories of his travels. For example, he will bring up anecdotes of his travels in Kenya while she talks to him about Asia and Hong Kong.

The flexible time slots offered by Bridgepoint not only benefitted Katie, but also Polly. Polly, a student from St. Paul’s Co-educational College, received offers from Headington, Charterhouse, Bromsgrove, and Brighton, as well as a full academic scholarship from King’s School Canterbury. Roxaneh Renton graduated from Edinburgh University and taught Polly poetry. To the surprise of many, not only does Bridgepoint prepare students for public examinations, it also builds a desire for learning in students. ‘Before tutoring, I was not a “huge fan” of poetry because it seemed very vague and unreachable. Now I enjoy poetry from Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Frost.’ Polly continued, ‘In school, we studied poems but it was hard to have a feel for the poem or to unravel the poem step by step. Usually we would go straight to the analysis in class.’

For Timothy, the goal was clear – he wanted to enter Harrow. A budding young poet also from St. Paul’s Co-educational College, Timothy sought help in learning poetry. The Common Entrance examinations seem much harder than the HKDSE curriculum, and he needed the most help on reading comprehension and poetry techniques and terms.  Many students, like Timothy, find immediate and structured feedback very useful, such as Timothy. ‘I thought that Bridgepoint was great because when I typed my answers online, Roxaneh would correct it immediately so it is good to see immediate edits.’ Roxaneh also taught beyond the textbooks. For Polly and Timothy, tutors on Bridgepoint gave them an idea of what boarding school lifestyle in the UK was like. As Timothy recalled, ‘While Roxaneh was teaching, she would also tell me about boarding school life and life at Harrow in particular since many of her friends studied there. She would tell me about their traditions, their housemaster and their culture.’

A brief portfolio of the three students mentioned above with their final offers is listed here:

Katie: Cheltenham Ladies College, Badminton, Headington, Woldingham, and Queenswood

Polly: King's School Canterbury, Headington, Charterhouse, Bromsgrove, and Brighton

Timothy: Harrow, Bromsgrove, and King's School Canterbury

About Bridgepoint

Bridgepoint Online Tutors (“Bridgepoint”) was formally launched in March 2014 by ARCH Education (“ARCH”) and Keystone Tutors (“Keystone”), two leading private education companies in Hong Kong and London, respectively. Although Hong Kong has no shortage of tutors, parents often find that the availability of expert tutors is much more limited for exams such as the Common Entrance, iGCSE, GCSE, A-Level and IB. As Hong Kong’s first premier online tutoring destination, Bridgepoint has met this problem by delivering high quality tutors via interactive online learning technology straight into homes. All the tutors are rigorously screened by a team based in the United Kingdom with less than 10% acceptance rate. Over 70% of the tutors come from Oxford, Cambridge, and other top learning institutions.