Our Story
Bright Heart Education is a tuition agency and education consultancy that focuses on those students who would benefit from a more nurturing approach to realise their potential.
These students may include those who lack confidence or motivation as well as those with special educational needs (SEN) or those that don’t quite ‘click’ in traditional classrooms. Our heart-based approach – the ‘Bright Heart Approach’ – involves meeting the whole person from their unique perspective with warmth to build trust, self-esteem and self-belief, before building on academic abilities.
Bright Heart was founded by Dr Ryan Stevenson and Simon McQueen with a mission to be the UK’s premier provider of tuition services for those students who would benefit most from a heart-based approach. To help achieve this, Bright Heart commissioned nasen (National Association of Special Educational Needs) to produce an online training course exclusively for Bright Heart to ensure that its tutors understand the importance of meeting the individual learning needs of all its students and will complement this through in-person nasen training.
Bright Heart provides experienced, vetted and trained tutors that are carefully matched to students and exemplify our heart-based ethos in all of their tutoring. Bright Heart currently focuses on providing tuition to students based in South West London and surrounding areas in Surrey.
How it started
Through Ryan’s extensive experience tutoring for some of London’s top agencies and teaching in London schools, he witnessed first-hand the lack of individual care and attention provided to those students who needed it most. Simply put, there was too much focus on the mind and achieving short-term academic goals, rather than first acknowledging the needs of the heart in order to realise long-term potential. The former, imbalanced approach was especially problematic for those students with additional learning needs and those lacking in confidence and motivation. He found that by acknowledging the whole person first and any challenges they may have, the mind would naturally follow, and a student’s true potential could be realised. The benefits of this approach were demonstrated by the exam results his students achieved and their improved motivation for learning.
Bright Heart Education was established to replicate Ryan’s successful approach to private tuition on a larger scale and aims to avoid the ‘hit and miss’ approach of throwing an unprepared tutor into often sensitive learning situations that require special care and attention. Simon, who attended school and university with Ryan, shares Ryan’s passion for education and brings extensive financial and corporate experience to the company.
Dr Ryan Stevenson - Director
Ryan has tutored and taught multiple students who didn’t always fit into the expected ‘boxes’ of traditional schooling. His experience includes dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, anxiety, ASC, dyscalculia, gender identity challenges as well as health and emotional issues which provides expertise in screening, training, monitoring and appropriately matching Bright Heart tutors to students. Ryan has attended a training course provided by nasen and is a member of the Tutors’ Association.
Ryan has a BSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town where he was also a tutor, with research carried out at Cambridge University and the University of Manchester. Further Post-Doctoral studies were conducted at Cambridge University. During a period of investment banking in Amsterdam, Ryan also completed a BSc in Politics and International Relations from the London School of Economics. He has experience in traditional schools teaching GCSE Maths and Science and A-Level Chemistry, and has tutored in London for 6 years. Ryan has been a volunteer therapist at the London charity, Body and Soul, for the past 6 years, and has also worked on a large project to connect students with nature.
Simon McQueen CA(SA), CFA - Director
Simon is a private equity professional with significant experience providing growth capital and strategic advice to small and mid-size companies. He has board-level experience focused on strategy, corporate development and financial oversight. Simon is a CFA charterholder and Big 4 qualified accountant with a stand-out academic record and experience tutoring finance under-graduate students at the University of Cape Town and running a share investment game for 2 years encouraging students from an under-privileged background to take an interest in the financial markets. Simon has attended a training course provided by nasen.
Our Philosophy
Our unique tutoring methodology, the Bright Heart Approach, puts into practice what Ryan has observed across a wide range of students. This approach, which is supported by scientific research, arises from our belief that effective tutoring not only focuses on the intellectual abilities of a person, but connects on a deeper level to achieve longer term stability and success. We also believe in ensuring our tutors are suitably prepared for meeting student’s needs – our training relationship with nasen helps our tutors to achieve this and provide our students with quality tuition.
Our confidence in the Bright Heart Approach and our carefully selected tutors is demonstrated by providing the first lesson free to our students.
Our Mission
- To be the UK’s leading provider of tuition services for those students that would benefit from a heart-based approach to realise their potential.
- To strive to ensure the unique needs of students are met by introducing clients to quality, trained tutors.
- To be an alternative resource for parents and organisations that struggle to find the appropriate supplementary education for their children or students.
Our Ethos
- We believe each person has a fundamentally unique perception of the world. This affects how they interact with others and how they learn.
- We believe and acknowledge through our tuition that intellectual capabilities are only one part of the whole person.
- We believe the best academic results are achieved in a learning environment based on mutual respect and warmth, good rapport, and well-prepared and trained tutors.
