Open sketch · GCSEs early · not taking other pupils yet
Lewis wants the exams early.
Dad is tutoring.
The notes are becoming a website.
A family project with a real door. Michael is tutoring his son Lewis (13) through GCSEs, early. First subject: Computer Science — OCR J277, every unit an open lesson. Two possible next steps, both still ideas: publish Lewis’s notes, and/or tutor other children — maybe as a group.
The work on the table
Lewis wants this exam first. The syllabus is a course home — Paper 1, Paper 2, programming practice, every spec point — so he can see the whole map and jump to the bit he is on.
OCR J277 · course home
Two written papers, no coursework, no calculator. 11 units, 26 official topic codes, plus the Python / Exam Reference Language work Paper 2 will actually mark. Each card opens a full lesson. Skip around; nothing is locked.
J277/01 · 50%
How computers actually work — the box, the data, the network, the rules.
J277/02 · 50%
Thinking, designing, tracing, and writing programs — including a long programming scenario.
Required practice
Python, Exam Reference Language, and the Section B skills Paper 2 actually marks.
Optional · auto-marked
Multiple-choice papers that mark themselves. Sit one, submit, get a score. Optional — nothing is locked behind a mark.
We do not need a new company to start. The work is the kitchen table, the spec papers, and a lad who wants to sit the exams before the usual year.
If you have seen tyneside.games: that shelf was Lewis at 12, one night, from a standing start. Academy is slower and more serious — exam content, not arcade — but it is the same person building a thing that holds what he knows.
Either, both, or neither. Written down so the idea doesn’t live only in chat.
He is already writing down what he learns so it isn’t trapped in a folder. That could stay private. Or it could become a public, living revision site — a Tyneside-shaped set of notes other early-takers (and ordinary-year pupils) could actually use. His voice, his gaps, his worked examples. Not a content farm. A trail of one person going through the spec.
Nothing from that site is on this page yet. When he is ready to show it, it can live here.
If the method works for Lewis, it might work for others — paid sessions, perhaps a small group rather than only one-to-one. Same honesty as cleaning: start with work we can actually do, Howden / Tyneside first, no pretend campus.
No price list. No subjects advertised. No DBS claim on this page because we are not taking bookings. If a parent WhatsApps, we will say where we actually are — likely “not yet”.
One day a month in the real company, with Mr Merrit and the school team, lives at tyneside.software/school.html. That is about Lewis at work. Academy is about exams and notes. Related son. Different door.
No classrooms, no Ofsted, no “academy chain”. The word on the domain is the ambition, not a status. Safeguarding, qualifications to teach, and whether group tuition even happens — all still open.
On the group sketchbook until it earns a homepage door. Games is Lewis’s proof of shipping. Software is the jobs engine. Academy would be the learning door if the notes — or the tutoring — grow up.
Curious is welcome. Booked-in is not, yet. WhatsApp if early GCSEs, revision notes, or a small group on Tyneside is something you have been looking for — we will keep the answer honest.
WhatsApp · +44 7411 949215