Customer story · Tutoring company

How Greenhill Academics grew from one tutor to 50+ and kept every lesson personal

Greenhill Academics, a UK tutoring company, has run almost every one-to-one lesson on Pencil Spaces since July 2024. More than 50 Oxbridge-educated tutors teach GCSE, A Level, IB and admissions students in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Families join from a link in their reminder email, and a coordinator is a message away.

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Greenhill Academics and Pencil Spaces logos on a shared Pencil Spaces board — Greenhill Academics runs its lessons on Pencil Spaces.

Organization: Greenhill Academics
greenhillacademics.com ↗
Based in: United Kingdom, since 2021
Teaches: GCSE, A Level, IB, entrance exams, admissions tests and university applications
Model: One-to-one online tutoring with Oxbridge-educated tutors
On Pencil Spaces: Almost every lesson, since July 2024

Results

One tutor in 2021, more than 50 today.

What Greenhill Academics has built since its founder taught every lesson himself.

50+

Oxbridge-educated tutors, from one tutor when Greenhill started in 2021.

Countries and territories beyond the UK where Greenhill families learn, from Spain to Singapore.

1 click

From the reminder email to the lesson. No download, no account, no password.

All of it one-to-one, with almost every lesson on Pencil Spaces since July 2024.

Sources: Greenhill Academics, and Russell Greenhill, The Best Tutoring Platform for Agencies, Greenhill Academics blog, June 2026.

The short version

Great tutors, no technical fires.

The challenge

Small delays multiply

A clunky join or a few lost minutes barely matter for one tutor. Across dozens of tutors and hundreds of lessons a month, they cost families time and coordinators their day.

What Greenhill built

One link, one board, one coordinator

Families are set up before the first lesson, join from a link in every reminder, and reach Greenhill’s lesson coordinators in their own group chat.

What happened

50+ tutors, still one-to-one

Greenhill grew from one tutor to more than 50, teaching families from the UK to Singapore, with almost every lesson on Pencil Spaces.

The company

A tutor, a student and one shared board.

Russell Greenhill founded Greenhill Academics in 2021 after a tutor changed the course of his own education. His plan was to hire outstanding tutors and use technology with intent, never as a shortcut for great teaching.

Today more than 50 Oxbridge-educated tutors teach one-to-one across GCSE, A Level and the IB. They also prepare students for 11+, 13+ and 16+ entrance exams, admissions tests such as the UCAT, LNAT and MAT, and university applications. Russell still tutors at least ten hours a week.

When every small delay multiplies

A tutor with a handful of students can get by on almost any setup. A tutoring company can’t. Across dozens of tutors and hundreds of lessons a month, a few lost minutes or a confusing link on a nervous first day happen everywhere at once.

Greenhill’s families are spread across time zones, in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain and Switzerland as well as the UK. Every lesson had to start on time, with nothing for a parent to install.

After testing the options, Greenhill built its whole process around Pencil Spaces in July 2024.

How Greenhill runs it

From booking to a calm first lesson.

Greenhill does the technical work so families don’t have to. Here’s the path every new family follows.

Before day one
Set up for them
Greenhill sets each family up on Pencil Spaces and sends welcome emails that carry everything they need.
From day one
A coordinator a message away
Each family gets a private WhatsApp or WeChat group, set up by Greenhill, to reach its lesson coordinators directly.
Before each lesson
Two reminders, one link
An email two days ahead and another an hour before, each with a direct link into the lesson.
Lesson time
One click and they’re in
No download, no account, no password. For a first lesson, families join about ten minutes early.

Inside a lesson

The student holds the pen.

Greenhill lessons happen on a whiteboard the tutor and student share live. A maths tutor works a problem line by line, then the student takes the pen and tries the next step.

A chemistry tutor sketches a mechanism and the student annotates it. Because the work stays on the board, the tutor can scroll back to the moment the confusion began.

One link, nothing to install

Students open the link from their reminder and land in the lesson. No download, no account, no password to remember.

A shared whiteboard

Tutor and student write on the same board, so the student tries each step and gets corrected in the moment.

Scroll back to the moment

Everything written in the lesson stays on the board, so the tutor can return to where a misunderstanding started.

Any laptop or tablet

A webcam and a steady connection are enough. A tablet with a stylus helps with handwritten maths and diagrams.

Russell Greenhill and Aaron Greenwood on a video call about Pencil Spaces

Watch: Russell Greenhill and Aaron Greenwood in a candid chat about Pencil Spaces (1:48).

“[Pencil Spaces] lets a small team run a large number of high-quality lessons without the experience degrading. Our coordinators spend their time on people rather than technical fires, and our tutors spend the whole hour teaching.”

Russell GreenhillFounder & CEO, Greenhill Academics

For other tutoring companies

Running a tutoring company? Five ideas from Greenhill.

01Set families up before the first lesson

When the account is ready and the link is in hand, the first lesson starts on time and calm.

02Put the join link in every reminder

Families never hunt for a link or install an app. One click and they’re in the lesson.

03Give every family a coordinator to message

A private group chat gives families one place to ask, so lesson time stays for teaching.

04Teach every lesson in the same place

One classroom for every tutor makes onboarding simpler and quality steadier as the team grows.

05Keep the founder teaching

Russell still tutors every week, which keeps the company close to what happens in each lesson.

Questions

About Greenhill and Pencil Spaces.

What is Greenhill Academics?

Greenhill Academics is a UK tutoring company founded by Russell Greenhill in 2021. More than 50 Oxbridge-educated tutors teach one-to-one across GCSE, A Level and the IB. They also prepare students for entrance exams at 11+, 13+ and 16+, admissions tests such as the UCAT, LNAT and MAT, and university applications.

How does Greenhill Academics use Pencil Spaces?

Greenhill has run almost every lesson on Pencil Spaces since July 2024. Tutor and student meet on video and work on a shared whiteboard. Families join from a direct link in their reminder emails, with nothing to install and no account to create. They reach Greenhill’s coordinators through a private group chat.

How do students join a Greenhill lesson?

With one click. Each reminder email carries a direct link to the lesson, so the student opens it and lands in the classroom. There’s no software to download, no account and no password. A laptop or tablet with a webcam and a steady connection is enough. A tablet with a stylus helps with handwritten maths.

Why does the classroom matter more for a tutoring company than for one tutor?

Because small problems multiply. A few lost minutes or a confusing join link barely matter to a tutor with a handful of students. Across dozens of tutors and hundreds of lessons a month, they cost families time and keep coordinators fixing technical problems instead of looking after people.

Can other tutoring companies run lessons like Greenhill’s on Pencil Spaces?

Yes. Pencil Spaces runs one-to-one and small-group lessons for tutoring companies of every size, on laptops, tablets and Chromebooks with nothing to install. It also works with tutoring platforms such as TutorCruncher, Teachworks and Wise. Get a demo and we’ll walk through how your tutors, families and lessons would run.

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