Why I started YourPath Academy
· Shaf Khan · 4 min read
At school I was the "smart kid". Teachers expected good grades from me, I expected good grades from me, and for a long time that's what happened. Then I sat my A-Levels and flopped them.
I won't pretend it was anything other than awful. I honestly felt distraught, and gutted that I'd allowed myself to end up in that situation. Everyone around me, my friends, my peers, were moving on to university, and I was looking at grades that didn't open any of the doors I'd planned to walk through.
What went wrong
It took me a while to be honest about it. I hadn't stopped being clever. The problem was that I'd never really learned how to learn. School is almost one size fits all, and that just so happened to work for me in high school.
At GCSE I could get by on understanding things in the lesson and cramming before the exam. A-Levels don't let you do that, and I found out the hard way. The content is bigger, the questions are less predictable, and the exam is testing whether you can use what you know, not just whether you've seen it before. I was revising by rereading my notes and highlighting them, which feels productive and does almost nothing.
Nobody had ever sat down with me and said: this is what the exam is actually asking for, this is where you're losing marks, and this is how to practise so it sticks.
Doing it again
So I redid them. This time I changed how I worked, not just how much. I did past papers early instead of saving them for the end, and made sure I understood each topic the first time rather than rushing through it and hoping it would stick. I marked my answers against the mark scheme and learned the exact phrases examiners look for. I tested myself instead of rereading, and I came back to topics after a gap instead of ticking them off once.
I got the grades I wanted. More importantly, I came out of it knowing why it had worked.
What came next
That second attempt took me to a BSc in Medical Genetics, then an MSc in Neuroscience and Translational Medicine, where I published research.
The neuroscience changed how I think about teaching. The study habits that worked for me the second time weren't luck. They line up with what the research says about memory: we remember what we practise pulling out of our heads, not what we read again, and spacing practice out beats doing it all at once. Most students are never told this. They work hard in ways that don't pay off, and then decide they're "not a science person" or "bad at maths".
Why tutoring, and why YourPath
I've now taught more than 700 one-to-one lessons on MyTutor, in GCSE and A-Level biology, chemistry, physics and maths, and I'm rated 4.9 stars from 27 reviews. The students I enjoy working with most are the ones who remind me of myself at 17: capable, but stuck, and starting to believe the grade on the paper says something about who they are.
Over those lessons I kept seeing the same things go wrong, and they weren't about the students.
- Families would find a tutor they liked, then lose them, and start again with someone new who didn't know their child.
- Parents were paying every week with no real idea what was happening in the lessons.
- Lessons were "help with homework" rather than a plan aimed at the exam the student was actually sitting.
YourPath Academy is my answer to those three things.
- The same tutor every week. That's me, for every lesson. Continuity is the whole point: I know where your child was last week and where they need to be in June.
- You see what's happening. After every lesson you get a short written update on what we covered and what to practise.
- Every lesson is aimed at the exam. I teach to the exact specification and exam board your child is sitting, and we use past papers and mark schemes from early on, the way I wish I had.
I called it YourPath because nobody's route through school is a straight line. Mine certainly wasn't. I want to be there for the whole journey, from 11+ through GCSE to A-Level, and for the students who need a second go as well as the ones aiming for the top grades.
Built on principles, not promises
We're new, so you won't find a wall of testimonials here, and I won't invent statistics. What I can promise is how I'll work: honestly, consistently, and with a clear plan you can see.
If your child is stuck, or you just want to talk through where they are, the first step is a free 15-minute call with me. No commitment, no hard sell.
Book it here: www.yourpathacademy.co.uk
Shaf