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Lowen Learning, Torpoint (2026)

17/12/2025

And finally, we’re at 2025. The final year of my tutoring business!

It began with my online tuition sessions as usual. I was working some students through their 11+ prep, I had two home education students and the rest were with me for general maths/English confidence boosting.

I also hit a huge personal milestone this year - releasing my first novel! It’s the type of thing I’d dreamed about since I was a child and to have it actually happen was surreal (and difficult as mum to a toddler and running two businesses 😂)

Despite how great my students were, I was falling further out of passion with the education system. Growing examination pressures, stressed students, seeing and hearing what was/is happening to our schools…it wasn’t landing right with me. Yet I still loved working with children. I started to brainstorm: could I move away from the curriculum and still tutor? Focus on home educating children? How could I keep the passion alive?

Almost as a twist of fate, the decision was made for me in November when my husband received some incredible news, career wise. A new opportunity, so well deserved after his YEARS of hard work, but this meant our home routine with childcare wouldn’t work anymore. With no other childcare options to cover me working everyday - and with a renewed plan for a family moving forwards - I made the bittersweet decision to finish tutoring from the end of 2025.

This means I will be free to home educate our daughter full time from next September, and I absolutely cannot wait for the adventure. It’s something both my husband and I are super passionate about and with an impending move too, there’s going to be a LOT going on!

Will I return to teaching/tutoring? The honest answer for me right now is: no. I’m strongly oppose what is happening within our education system and to continue teaching the curriculum makes me feel even more complicit within it. I want nothing but the best for all my previous students and I hope upon hope things can turn around, schools can receive PROPER funding and teachers and teaching staff can be supported to do the jobs they’re so good at.

So for now, it’s goodbye and thank you to everyone who has supported me and my little business. It’s meant so much and I look back with such fondness ❤️

📍 Where to find me now:

Instagram & Facebook:

For all things writing!

Instagram & Tiktok:

For all things motherhood, life and home education

17/12/2025

2023/2024

These years saw me continue my tuition business: I was happy with 12 students and I was working hard to keep learning meaningful and engaging.

This year also saw me branch out into another strand - I started a social media account on both TikTok and Instagram called “Teacher to Tutor” which shared my journey out of teaching and into tutoring. Alongside offering advice and support to others wanting to do the same, I shared some frank and honest truths about the education system, met with multiple comments from teachers sharing their own similar experiences. I spied an opportunity here for community, so I created the “Teacher to Tutor Toolkit” a comprehensive guide to setting up your own tutoring business. The guide sold over 500 copies whilst in publication and I’m hugely proud of what I achieved with it, including hosting monthly webinars and being asked to appear on podcasts.

However, it was also across these two years I started to notice a shift within myself; my dedication to my students never waned but I found I was questioning the curriculum much more, including it’s relevance but also it’s difficulty. My students just appeared to be more stressed in general around school and quite often would talk negatively about their learning, which made me feel really sad. My own enthusiasm for teaching specific curriculum areas was down and maintaining/increasing children’s enthusiasm was starting to exhaust me.

We’d also made the decision firmly that we wanted to home educate our own daughter and looking into this, coupled with my waning enthusiasm, made me start to question how I was feeling about everything. However, the fact I still loved working with children continued to trump this.

The biggest change in 2024, was that I made the decision to move my tuition online. My daughter was getting older, and we wanted a dedicated room for her play and learning so my tutor room became this. I was nervous about the switch but confident I could make it work, investing in a writing pad, a better quality laptop/webcam and a Zoom subscription so I could deliver the same quality sessions!

I phased out my face to face sessions and started fully online. I was nervous but overall I think it worked really well. Students adapted and I became used to my new methods.

2024 ended a successful one, with 4 11+ passes and lots of confident children ❤️

17/12/2025

As it’s the last week of my business, I’m sharing my journey year by year! So here’s what happened in…

2022 ✨

I ended up taking maternity leave from February half term, with my daughter due end of March. I was SO uncomfortable and tired and I was doing my last few sessions sat on an exercise ball 🤣 (all so glam here, but it did the trick and meant sessions could go ahead!)

We had our daughter at the end of March and I took 5 months of maternity leave. I felt able to do this as tutoring really isn’t as stressful or time consuming as teaching, plus I was working from home which took the pressure off. The majority of my students stayed with me throughout the time, their tuition just “on hold” until I returned in September.

Before my students returned in September, we redecorated our downstairs office room and I properly kitted it out to be my tutoring room. I LOVED this space. It was my sanctuary, and all my students loved the space too. It was here I felt my business REALLY took off. I welcomed 3 more students taking me up to 11 and I had a waiting list too so word was clearly getting out! It had previously taken me a while to “unlearn” classroom teaching but now I was aware I could teach as I wanted to, I didn’t have to place unnecessary stress or pressure on children because ultimately, I had no Ofsted, no observations and no booklooks! I was just doing what I loved: helping children learn in the way they learned best.

2022 ended with a long waiting list, 3 successful 11+ exam passes and lots of happy students!

17/12/2025

This is officially my last week running my tutoring business! So I thought I’d share a bit about my tuition journey, ya know, just for old time’s sake!

2021 - I decided to hang up my teaching hat and go it alone as a tutor! There were several reasons for this but I think the biggest was just my disagreement and disengagement with how schools were having to run (mainly due to enormous funding cuts that by the way are getting worse). I wasn’t able to teach how I wanted to, I couldn’t get one to one time with children, there was far too much to cover and my working hours were insaneeee. I wanted to get some of my life back and I handed in my notice in the January, ready to leave in July.

Fast forward to July and SURPRISE I found out I was pregnant 🤣 In terms of starting up a business it wasn’t the best timing but for us as a family it was amazing, and following baby loss years before it was the miracle we’d been waiting for ❤️

I was VERY poorly in my pregnancy with HG and spent the entirety of the August in bed, unable to do really anything. Thankfully, by the first week of September the medication I’d been given meant I could lift my head off the pillow and my first sessions went ahead. I’d gained 8 students and felt privileged these people trusted me as a newbie with their children’s learning ✨

Unfortunately our house move had been delayed and the first week of sessions had to happen from my dining room table in my old house and we moved the next week! All my students’ parents were lovely and incredibly understanding though.

I finished 2021 by telling parents I was pregnant; again, I was nervous of their reaction seeing as I’d really only just started but they were all very supportive.

It didn’t feel like my tutoring journey fully started in 2021, mainly as I felt so poorly but had to keep going. I spent many sessions trying not to be sick 😅 (I laugh now, but at the time it was HELLISH).

My next post will be about 2022, the year I felt my business really take off!

12/11/2025

BIG BUSINESS ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨

I have some big news to share regarding my tutoring business and now all of my students know, I'm ready to share here.

I am going to be closing my tutoring business, Lowen Learning, with my last day officially on 17th December.

My husband has worked extremely hard and been offered an incredible career opportunity, one which will change our daily routines and, due to lack of suitable childcare, means I will no longer be able to work in the afternoons. Therefore, my tutoring sessions will no longer be running.

This is a big change for us as a family but it's going to work well in the long run - some of you will know we are going to be home educating our daughter and this is going to "free" me up to focus on this. Plus, we (hopefully!) have an impending house move coming up, and this will give me more time and space for this too.

I started my tuition business (first Kate Hepplewhite Tutoring, then Lowen Learning) all the way back in September 2021. It's had several developments and revisions since then, and I'm going to be sharing and celebrating some of these over the coming weeks, before I close my business.

I'll be saying this many times before the 17th December, but THANK YOU to everyone who has supported my business in any way. It feels such an honour when anyone entrusts their child with you for tuition, and then any recommendations or returning families make that even more special!

More to come over the next few weeks!

Kate x

11/10/2025

RARE TUITION SLOT!

Due to a child’s tuition ending now they’ve taken the 11+ exam, I have a space on a Monday.

✨ Online via zoom
✨ All learning materials emailed in advance of session
✨ Interactive sessions - real time modelling of learning use my Wacom writing pad on screen!
✨ Weekly homework to support learning in session
✨ Follow up email after each session
✨ Half termly “report” with updated tracker to see exactly where your child is at
✨ Access to 40+ quality GL exam papers

Hugely competitive £30 per hour.

If you have any questions about how tuition works or would like to discuss anything further, please drop me a message via:

📞 WhatsApp: 07807611258
✉️ Email: [email protected]

08/06/2025

IS YOUR CHILD STARTING YEAR 3 IN SEPTEMBER?

I have a brand new tutoring group for you!

The jump from KS1 to KS2 can feel like an overwhelming one for some students. The objectives within SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) become more complex, reading texts require a deeper comprehension and further maths objectives are introduced.

If a child is still feeling shaky on Year 2 objectives, the jump can feel even bigger and this is when the "gap" in understanding begins to widen.

I pride myself as a tutor on creating sessions for children which focus on engagement and deep rooted understanding, as opposed to loosely brushing over content and then moving on quickly. My new small group set ups from September will allow for collaborative learning and support, alongside plenty of 1-2-1 support for each child.

Help support your child from Year 2 to Year 3 with my weekly, face to face sessions from Torpoint Council Chambers!

Information on advert below: DM me or email/message for more information!

BOOK WITH A FRIEND AND GET 10% EACH OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH!

08/06/2025

Things that are/aren't important to me as a tutor!

Essentially...turn up, listen hard and try your best. Those are essentially my only "rules!"

28/05/2025

SESSIONS ARE NOW BOOKABLE FOR SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER!

11+ sessions

⭐For students taking exams to attend DHSB, your session will be Tuesdays 3.30 - 4.45, starting 9th September (3 out of 4 spaces remaining)
⭐ For students taking exams to attend either DHSG or PHSG, your session will be Mondays 3.30 - 4.45, starting 6th October (this is due to commitments with my current 11+ students) (3 out of 4 spaces remaining)

Year 6 booster sessions (2 out of 4 spaces remaining)
⭐ These sessions will take place on Mondays 4.45 - 5.45, starting 6th October (this is due to commitments with my current students)
⭐ Perfect for year 6 students wanting that little extra boost with their maths and English
⭐ great for raising confidence and skills around SATs and all areas of the year 6 curriculum

AND, after listening to feedback from some parents in the community I have decided to change my other available session to cater for:

Year 3 booster sessions (all 4 spaces available)
⭐ These sessions will take place on Tuesdays 4.45 - 5.45, starting 9th September
⭐ The jump from KS1 to KS2 can be quite a drastic one, so these sessions will help ease the transition and help boost confidence, knowledge and skills

⭐All sessions will take place at Torpoint Council Chambers with me, a qualified teacher/tutor of almost ten years experience.

⭐All resources and learning materials will be provided.

📞 Contact me on the details below to ask any questions, or get your child booked on!

21/05/2025

I have to give a shoutout to Lachlann, one of my 11+ students!

He has been working super hard since September and we are deep into our journey now. Every maths session involves working through maths papers and the questions are HARD! (See some examples below!)

He approaches every single questions with high engagement and a positive attitude, so I had to mention this today.

If you think your child need help and guidance with these sorts of questions before sitting the exam in September 2026, drop me a message as I have space available in the autumn term in two groups, one for boys and one for girls!

20/05/2025

What did we get up to today?

18/05/2025

LOOKING FOR AN 11+ TUTOR?

The open days for DHSG, DHSB and PHSG are all taking place across the next couple of months, so now is the perfect time to secure your 11+ tutor from the autumn term!

I will be tutoring from a room in Torpoint Council Chambers.

I have spaces across the following days/times:

FROM SEPTEMBER:
⭐Devonport High School for Boys 11+ GL exam prep
⭐Tuesdays 3.30 - 4.45pm
⭐Prep for GL maths, reading and independent writing exams

FROM OCTOBER (due to current tutoring commitment)
⭐Devonport High School for Girls/Plymouth High School for Girls
⭐Mondays 3.30 - 4.45pm
⭐Prep for GL maths and reading exams

WHAT'S INCLUDED IN YOUR SESSIONS?

⭐75 minutes of tuition from an experienced teacher/tutor
⭐Tuition in small groups of 4 children max
⭐Structured, focused sessions covering knowledge and exam technique
⭐An introductory pack at the start of the year, including information about the exams, suggestions of resources for further study and a reading list/vocabulary list
⭐Weekly homework focused on the session's objectives, marked weekly with feedback
⭐Choice to be added to a WhatsApp support group, where you can ask questions, connect with other parents and receive important updates
⭐All resources included and prepared, including quality exam papers
⭐A "curriculum" overview, detailing the course of our learning throughout the year and then individually for each half term, to support your independent study
⭐An weekly, post-session email detailing what was covered in the session and how your child responded/areas for development
⭐A half-termly "report" detailing an overview of the half term's learning and where we plan to go next half term
⭐ESSENTIAL snacks (aka, biscuits)
⭐A friendly, patient and engaging tutor!

Sessions are £30 per 75 minutes and payment is payable monthly.

Sessions are term-time guaranteed with holiday sessions booked ad-hoc and upon discussion with parents (as I will booking and paying for a venue, the sessions have to be viable financially).

To ask ANY questions, or to sign up your child ready for an autumn term start, please don't hesitate to contact me on:

📞 07807 611258 - WhatsApp
✉️ [email protected]
💬 or DM via this page

I really look forward to hearing from you and getting your child's 11+ tuition secured!

Best wishes,

Kate Lowen Learning

Lowen Learning

17/12/2025

17/12/2025

17/12/2025

17/12/2025

12/11/2025

11/10/2025

08/06/2025

08/06/2025

28/05/2025

21/05/2025

20/05/2025

18/05/2025

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