How many tutoring sessions a week do I need in the last eight weeks?

For most students, one or two sessions a week is enough, provided they do the independent practice in between. More sessions help only if the student is also practising on their own. A third weekly session rarely adds value over better use of the first two.

Is it too late to start with a tutor eight weeks before exams?

No. Eight weeks is enough time to improve noticeably if the work is targeted. Tell the tutor the exam date and board at the first lesson so they plan backwards from it rather than starting from the beginning of the syllabus.

Should the tutor teach new content or just practise past papers?

Both, in order. Teach content only where past papers show real gaps, then shift towards timed practice. Re-teaching the whole course in eight weeks is rarely realistic.

What should we do the week before the exam?

Keep sessions short and confidence-building: review error logs, formulas or key quotations, and a few timed questions. Avoid new topics, sleep properly and plan the exam day logistics.

How to prepare for exams with a tutor in the final 8 weeks

In the final eight weeks, spend the first week diagnosing weak topics with a past paper, use weeks two to five to fix those topics, move to timed full papers in weeks six and seven, and use the last week for light review and rest. Use the tutor for feedback and exam technique, and do the memorising yourself between lessons.

Eight weeks is a useful amount of time. It is long enough to change results and short enough that wasted sessions hurt. Students who use that time well tend to share three habits: they find out exactly where marks are being lost, they practise under exam conditions, and they use their tutor for what only a tutor can do, which is feedback.

This guide gives a week-by-week plan that works for GCSE, A level, IB and similar exams, whether you are the student or the parent. It assumes one or two online sessions a week and a student who can do some work alone.

Before week one: tell the tutor the facts

At the first session in this period, share:

Exam dates, exam board and the specification code or syllabus.
Predicted or recent mock grades and the target grade.
Which papers or components carry most marks.
Any access arrangements, such as extra time.
How many hours a week the student can realistically revise.

A tutor who knows the date can plan backwards. If you are choosing a tutor for the first time, how to choose a GCSE maths tutor lists what to look for, and most of it applies to other subjects.

Week 1: diagnose

Do not start by revising everything. Start by finding where marks are lost.

The student sits a recent past paper, or the best half of one, under timed conditions before the session.
The tutor marks it with the official mark scheme, or goes through it together in the lesson.
Every lost mark is logged in a simple table: topic, type of error, and marks lost.

Types of error matter. Typical categories are: did not know the content, knew it but made a slip, misread the question, ran out of time, or answered in the wrong style. A student losing marks to misreading needs a very different plan from one who has not learned a topic.

At the end of week one you should have a ranked list of five to eight priority topics and a clear sense of the main error types. Share it with the parent as well.

Weeks 2 to 5: fix the gaps

This is the teaching block. Each week:

Choose one or two priority topics from the list.
In the session, the tutor teaches or re-teaches the topic, then the student works questions aloud while the tutor watches the thinking, not just the answer.
Between sessions, the student does 30 to 45 minutes of targeted practice on the same topic and brings the marked work to the next lesson.
Keep a running error log. When a mistake recurs, write the rule or correction in one sentence.

Mix topics. Return to last week’s topic with three questions at the start of the next lesson; spaced recall holds knowledge far better than a single intense session.

Subject notes:

Maths and sciences: practise method marks. Show working, and learn which steps earn marks.
English and humanities: build a bank of evidence (quotations, dates, case studies) and practise paragraph structure. The tutor can mark an essay in far more detail than the student can by self-assessment.
Languages: prioritise high-frequency vocabulary and the speaking or writing tasks that carry most marks. For science, how to find a good science tutor covers practical and required-experiment questions.

If a topic is not improving after two sessions, change the approach: a different explanation, a worked example, a short video, or simpler questions first.

Weeks 6 and 7: timed papers

Shift from learning to performing.

Once a week, the student sits a full paper in exam conditions, with no notes, phone away and strict timing. Do this at the same time of day as the real exam if possible.
The tutor spends the following session on the paper’s marking. Use the lesson to look at how marks were lost, not to re-teach the entire paper.
Teach exam technique explicitly: reading command words (“explain”, “evaluate”, “calculate”), allocating minutes per mark, what to do when stuck, and how to check work in the final five minutes.

A common rule is roughly one minute per mark, plus time to review. Practise skipping a question, circling it and returning. Many students lose more marks from poor timing than from missing knowledge.

Update the error log and compare it with week one. Marks should be moving in the categories you targeted. If timing remains the problem, make the next paper stricter.

Week 8: consolidate and rest

The last week is not for cramming new topics.

Keep sessions short, perhaps 30 to 45 minutes, focused on the error log, key formulas, definitions or quotations.
Do a handful of timed questions on the weakest topics, not a full paper the night before.
Sort the practical details: equipment, route, start time, what to eat. Confirm any online or remote exam arrangements.
Protect sleep. A tired student recalls and reasons worse than a rested one with a small gap in knowledge.

Parents can help by keeping the house calm, reducing pressure to talk about predicted grades, and making sure meals and sleep happen.

A sample weekly rhythm

For one tutoring session a week:

Monday: study 45 minutes on the priority topic from the last lesson.
Wednesday: 30 minutes of mixed past-paper questions, marked against the scheme.
Friday: the tutoring session, which reviews marked work, teaches the next topic and sets practice.
Weekend: one longer block of 60 to 90 minutes, a paper section or a recall session.

Two to four focused hours of independent work around each session beats a long weekend of unfocused revision.

What parents can check

You do not need subject knowledge to see whether the plan is working. Ask:

Is there a ranked list of priority topics, and is it shrinking?
Is the student doing timed practice, and are the scores moving?
Does the tutor give specific feedback after each session?
Is the student sleeping and eating reasonably well?

For ways to track progress without nagging, see how to track your child’s progress with a tutor. If scores are flat after three weeks, raise it with the tutor and agree a change.

Eight weeks will not rebuild years of gaps, but it can reliably move a student up a grade boundary when the time is aimed at the right marks.