I’m Steve Almond and I own and run East Cheshire Tutor Doctor. I’m married to Susan, who is a qualified Primary Teacher and also a very experienced 1:1 Primary tutor. My three children are Thomas, David and Katherine. Thomas has recently started on his A-Levels at Loreto College, Manchester and my other two are embarking on their final two years to GCSE’s at Werneth High School.
I don’t get as much spare time to indulge my other passions as I’d like, but when I’m not running East Cheshire Tutor Doctor, I like to spend my spare time hill-walking, running and mountain biking.
Anyway, onto the business.
How did I get involved with personal tuition and Tutor Doctor in the first place? About a year ago I was faced with moving to Hull with work or to exit that role and do something else. Not wanting to uproot the family, I started looking for an alternative career and eventually found the opportunity of becoming a Tutor Doctor. The more I looked into the opportunity, the more it became clear that being a Tutor Doctor owner would mean making a real difference with people’s education. A few years prior to this I had the privilege of being the manager of a local junior lacrosse team where both my sons played. I saw other children coming into the game and growing as individuals and being associated with this was very rewarding for me. I think that experience gave me an insight into what I could direct myself towards and when Tutor Doctor came along it wasn’t such a difficult decision to make.
When I looked into becoming a Tutor Doctor owner in earnest, one phrase that kept cropping up whenever I spoke to other Tutor Doctors across the UK was ‘we make a difference every day’. This insight was offered freely and without any prompting and I was hooked on the prospect of becoming part of this. Shortly after, I made the decision.
Passion and making a difference is the very essence of Tutor Doctor and it’s the driving force that underpins everything we strive to achieve. I’m passionate about what I do, and you will see that for yourself if you come and work with Tutor Doctor either as a customer or as a tutor. When I’m recruiting tutors one of the main things I’m looking for in people is a genuine passion for education and furthering people’s learning. If I don’t see that I don’t ask them to come and work for us. Period.
I’m often amazed at what we get asked to help with. I think recently we could also have rebranded ourselves as ‘University Rescue’ based on the number of first year undergraduates that have been seeking out our help! What’s even more amazing is how we always find a way to help virtually each and every one of our students. We’ve been asked to find tutors for dentistry, law, geology, statistics in economics, aviation and even fashion design!
The most important point to remember about the Tutor Doctor service is that we’ll always go that extra mile to make sure our students get all the help they need. I don’t think I’ve once been faced with the task of saying, ‘Sorry, but we can’t help you with that.’ Not once.. Whether it’s a 5 year old child struggling with the basic grasp of number, a mature student needing help to learn French over the summer or a geology undergraduate seeking support to re-do a whole year’s course-work in just 6 weeks – Tutor Doctor can and will be there to help you!