What Cardiff maths tutoring actually looks like
A typical CF23 family books a Year 10 at Cardiff High (Welsh state school sitting WJEC). Tutor is a Cardiff Uni Maths postgrad in CF24 (Cathays), £30 an hour, weekly 60-minute sessions on a Tuesday evening, working through both WJEC GCSE Maths Foundation/Higher and the separate Numeracy paper. Across 30 teaching weeks that’s £900, normal for a serious GCSE engagement.
Cardiff Sixth Form College (CF14, in Heath) is the high-pressure end of the city’s maths market. Students typically sit Edexcel A-level Maths and Further Maths and parents budget for £45-£55 hourly tutors who’ve taught the Edexcel papers. Many of these tutors are remote — they come from London or Cambridge — and run lessons online. Howell’s School Llandaff (CF5) and Cardiff Cathedral School (CF5) similarly run independent-school exam boards rather than WJEC.
What good profiles look like
Cardiff tutor profiles need to name the exam board explicitly. ‘Maths tutor in Cardiff’ isn’t enough. ‘WJEC GCSE Maths and Numeracy specialist, two years tutoring Cardiff High and Whitchurch students, last cohort averaged a B grade with two A*s’ converts. So does ‘Edexcel A-level Maths tutor for Cardiff Sixth Form College students, taught the 2017 spec for six years.’ Parents skim, see the board match, message you.
The other thing to ask is whether the tutor knows the WJEC mark schemes. WJEC awards method marks differently from Edexcel — they’re more generous on intermediate working but stricter on final answer presentation. A tutor who’s only ever marked Edexcel Maths will under-train your child on showing working in the WJEC style.
A real example — WJEC GCSE Maths, Llanishen
A Llanishen High Year 11 was sitting WJEC GCSE Maths Higher and Numeracy in May, predicted 5/6 in both, getting 4s in mocks. Found a tutor on TheTutorLink in January — a former Cardiff secondary teacher in Whitchurch (CF14) who’d taught WJEC for twelve years before going part-time. £35 an hour, weekly 75-minute sessions, total 14 sessions through January-May, £612 spend. He drilled the Higher tier algebra (the boy was avoiding the simultaneous equations and quadratic factorising) and the Numeracy real-world percentages questions. Final results: 7 in Maths, 6 in Numeracy. The detail: Welsh schools deliver Numeracy in compressed time and many students under-prepare for it; the tutor allocated 30% of sessions specifically to Numeracy past papers, which the boy hadn’t done at school.
When to start and how often
Cardiff state-school students sit WJEC GCSE Maths and Numeracy in May-June of Year 11, with mocks usually in November-December of Year 11. Smart families start tutoring in October of Year 11 and run weekly through to the May exams — 30 sessions at £30 hourly, total £900. Earlier (Year 10) is fine if the foundational gaps are large; the Welsh primary-to-secondary maths transition leaves some students short on number fluency and that takes time to rebuild.
A-level students at Cardiff Sixth Form College and Howell’s run Edexcel or AQA, with mocks in January and finals in May-June. The pattern there is more intense — 90-minute weekly sessions at £45-£55, often starting in October of Year 13 and running to May. Total spend £1,300-£1,700 for the year. Many CSFC parents budget for this explicitly because the school’s results pressure makes a tutor near-default rather than optional.
What it costs and how to book
Across Cardiff, expect £20-£28 for primary numeracy, £25-£38 for WJEC GCSE, £28-£40 for English-board GCSEs at the independents, £35-£50 for WJEC A-level and £40-£55 for Edexcel/AQA A-level. A typical WJEC GCSE engagement at £32 hourly across 28-30 weeks runs £900-£960 across the year. A WJEC A-level engagement runs £1,260-£1,500 at £45 hourly across 28 weeks of 90-minute sessions. Cardiff Sixth Form College Edexcel A-level tuition is the highest band — around £1,540-£1,820 across Year 13 at £55-£65 hourly. Howell’s School Llandaff Edexcel rates sit similar to CSFC. The platform fee on TheTutorLink is 5%, paid by the tutor, so the rate you see is broadly the rate you pay. Compare with Tutorful’s 25% — across a 30-session WJEC GCSE engagement at £32 the difference is around £190, money that stays with the Cardiff tutor instead of going to the platform. For Cardiff Sixth Form College Edexcel A-level engagements at £55, the difference across 28 weeks is closer to £300. Compare with Tutorful (25%), MyTutor (22%) and Superprof (20%) — keeping more of each session is why several experienced WJEC-trained Cardiff tutors list here. Filter by your CF postcode, by ‘GCSE’ or ‘A-level’, and crucially by exam board (WJEC, Edexcel, AQA). Message two or three local tutors with a specific question about the paper your child is sitting. The first lesson is free, which lets you check whether they can actually walk through a WJEC mark scheme rather than waving at it generically.