Why We Don't Call Ourselves a Tutoring Agency

Every so often, a parent asks me why we describe ourselves the way we do — a Community Interest Company (CIC), and at the start of a new academic year, I think it’s worth answering properly, because it explains a lot about how we actually work, and why.

What a CIC actually is

A Community Interest Company is a type of organisation set up specifically to benefit a community rather than to generate profit for owners or investors. Unlike a private company, a CIC has what’s called an “asset lock” — a legal commitment that the organisation’s money and assets are used for its stated community purpose, not distributed to shareholders. We chose this structure deliberately when The Community Schools began, because it matched exactly what we wanted to build.

Why we chose it

The Community Schools CIC exists to provide young people with teaching support that mainstream school doesn’t provide as standard, matched to how they actually learn — and to take some of the pressure off families who are often worn out from searching for it. We have no shareholders. Every surplus we make goes back into extending what we can offer to more young people, rather than out to investors. That’s not a marketing line; it genuinely shapes decisions we make, from which tutors we take on, to how we structure our fees.

How it's different from a 'tutor agency'

An agency, generally speaking, connects families with self-employed tutors and steps back. We don’t work that way. Every teacher who works with your child is directly employed by us — properly supported, safely recruited and fully vetted, not simply hired — because that’s what allows them to do their best work for a child, and it’s what allows us to stand behind the service we provide. Our tutors are also qualified, experienced teachers, not simply enthusiastic subject graduates. That distinction matters more than it might sound: a qualified teacher has usually seen hundreds of children hit the same sticking point your child is hitting now, and knows several different ways through it.

What this means for your family

There’s a practical benefit to being structured this way that goes beyond good intentions. Because we’re not paying out to shareholders, surplus funds genuinely go towards more tutors, better support, and wider provision — which means more families like yours can access teaching they might otherwise struggle to find. It also means we can properly support the tutors we work with, rather than simply passing families along.

What this means for your child, day to day

None of this is really about company structure for its own sake. It’s about what it produces: a tutor who feels properly supported tends to teach with more patience, more consistency, and more genuine investment in a child’s progress than one juggling several agencies and no real backing. Over the past 16 years, I’ve seen the difference that makes, again and again — in how a tutor handles a child’s frustration, how carefully they explain something for the third time, and how much they notice beyond the worksheet in front of them.

If you're weighing up whether tuition is worth it

I’d say this: the question isn’t really “is tuition worth it” in the abstract. It’s whether the right teacher, working consistently with your child, would make a meaningful difference to how they feel about a subject, and how they perform in it. That’s genuinely easier to work out in a short conversation than from a website. So book a call with me today.

Written by Claire Meadows-Smith
Founder and Principal

The Community Schools is a Suffolk-based education organisation supporting more than 300 families every week, working with more than 50 specialist tutors with years of teaching experience. Founded by Claire Meadows-Smith, who brings more than 45 years in education, we offer online and in-person tuition, one-to-one and small-group support, and The Community Home Education Hub for KS3 and KS4 home-educated students.

Not sure where to start? Book a free 20-minute planning call with Claire — you don’t need to know which service is right beforehand, that’s exactly what the call is for.

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Why We Don’t Call Ourselves a Tutoring Agency