Tutors: how to plan for the exam revision rush

To handle the exam revision rush, plan it before it starts. Decide how many extra hours you can really give in the weeks before exams, keep your regular students' lessons protected first, then open dedicated revision slots early, as their own service with their own length and price. Small group sessions let you help more students in the same hours, and a revision course over the holidays gives families a clear option. When your revision slots are full, they disappear from your page, which is your signal to stop adding more.

During the year, demand is steady: regular students at the same hour each week, plus a few one-off requests. Before exams, it changes. Families who didn't need a tutor in autumn suddenly want several sessions in a few weeks, regular students ask for extra lessons, and every request lands on the same evenings and weekends. Without a plan, you end up answering messages late at night, adding sessions one by one and working every free hour.

Before opening anything, count. How many extra hours per week can you give without your regular lessons suffering? Which days are you willing to extend, and until when? Revision sessions are demanding for you too, and a tired tutor in the last week before exams doesn't help anyone.

Write your revision period on your calendar: when it starts, when it ends, and the maximum number of hours you'll add each week.

Your regular students have been with you all year, and they're the ones you know best. Before opening revision slots to everyone, offer them extra sessions and book those yourself from your calendar. Each session you book is removed from your page, so new families only see what's genuinely left.

On Book, each format is a service with its own price and optional description, and you open slots for each at the length it takes. A slot can have several places: for a small group, set the number of places to your group size. Each student books one place, and when the group is full, the slot is no longer shown on your page.

Slots sit within a single day. For a revision course over several days, you can either open one slot per day so students book the days they need, or open a slot on the first day and list the full dates and times in the service description.

Families start thinking about revision a few weeks before exams, often after mock exams or a disappointing report. If your revision slots are already on your page at that point, they can book straight away instead of messaging you. Open the whole revision period at once, and say in the service descriptions what each session covers, which levels you take and what students should bring: their notes, past papers, the topics they find hardest.

You can also send your booking page link to the families of your regular students when you open the revision period, so they see the options before anyone else.

If a student needs to change a session, reschedule or cancel it from your bookings list and the slot becomes available again. Book doesn't email the student when you change a booking, so let them know yourself.