1-to-1 online lessons with a Cambridge CELTA certified tutor. Work on every paper, and results to show for it: one student moved from Band 4 to Band 7 in six months.
For visas, university admission and professional registration
Practise all three parts of the speaking test with a native-speaker examiner's ear: fluency, pronunciation, and the confidence to keep talking under pressure.
Task 1 and Task 2 structures, precise academic vocabulary, and what the examiner is actually rewarding at each band.
Timing strategy, question-type tactics, and the traps that cost easy marks. Turn the English you already have into the score it should be earning you.
A structured plan towards your target band, with regular progress checks so you walk into test day knowing what to expect.
"I started my course with Hugh with a passive knowledge of English and a lack of confidence to express myself. I had a real block with English, which is essential in my job. The lessons with Hugh enabled me to express myself very quickly and efficiently in everyday life as well as in a professional or academic context. After six months I was able to get a 7 in my IELTS which I thought was impossible. I highly recommend Hugh for his patience and expertise."
Most candidates who plateau have plenty of English and no diagnosis. They sit practice test after practice test, score 6.5 each time, and conclude that the remedy is more practice — when what they need is to know which of the four marking criteria is holding them at 6.5, and what a 7 looks like on that criterion.
Each paper is marked out of nine and your overall band is the average of the four, rounded to the nearest half. That arithmetic rewards repair work: lifting your weakest paper by a single band will usually do more for your overall score than polishing your strongest. It is worth knowing which of your four is the cheapest to move before you spend three months moving it.
Writing is where most candidates lose the score they came for. It is assessed on four criteria — task response, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy — and they carry equal weight. A candidate with handsome vocabulary and a Task 2 essay that never quite answers the question will be capped by task response, however well-made the sentences are. Speaking is assessed on a parallel set: fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation. In both papers the examiner is working from a descriptor, not an impression, and the descriptors are public.
This is why the first lesson is largely listening. I want to hear you speak, and to read something you have written under timed conditions, so that we can name the criterion costing you the band and spend our hours there rather than distributing them evenly out of fairness. Practice tests report your score. They are silent on the reason for it.
IELTS is also unusual among English exams in that almost nobody sits it for its own sake. There is a visa behind it, or a conditional offer, or a professional registration — and there is a date. Bring me the band you need and the deadline you are working to, and I will give you an honest view of whether it is reachable in the time, and what reaching it would ask of you.
Tell me your target band, your deadline, and where you're starting from
We benchmark where you are now, then build a structured plan towards your target score
Weekly online lessons focused on the papers and skills where you'll gain the most marks
Single sessions £55 · packages of 6 or 12 with discounts
Book Your Free Intro CallLessons run Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 10am – 6pm, and Tuesday and Friday, 10am – 2.30pm (UK time).