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A small academy, run by people who still teach.
Boost was founded in 2019 by a Grade 9 learner who had worked out that most tutoring explains the answer rather than the reason. Seven years on, that is still the whole method.
The founding
It started as The Maths Wizz, in Grade 9.
In 2019, while still at school himself, Lincoln Matthews began tutoring Mathematics to learners a year or two below him. The name was The Maths Wizz. There was no business plan, only the observation that classmates were not failing because they were incapable, but because nobody had shown them where the reasoning began.
That observation has survived every change since. The name became Boost Learning Academy. One subject became eight. One tutor became a team drawn from three of the country's top universities. What has not changed is the conviction underneath: a learner who understands why a method works can rebuild it under exam pressure, and a learner who has only memorised it cannot.
Lincoln still teaches. He remains an active Mathematics tutor alongside running the academy, which is deliberate: the standards tutors are held to are standards he is still holding himself to, in front of learners, every week.
What we hold to
Three commitments, in every lesson we run.
These are not aspirations posted on a wall. They are the things a tutor is reviewed against, and the things a family can hold us to.
Full attention, either way
Most of our lessons are private, one-on-one. Where a learner joins a group, it is capped at eight, small enough that no question goes unheard. We would rather turn a learner away than make it nine.
Understanding before drill
We do not move to past-paper practice until the underlying concept is secure. Drill without understanding is the cause of poor marks, not the cure for them.
Honesty about fit
If a learner needs something we do not do well, we say so and point elsewhere. A family that trusts our no can trust our yes.
The team
A team that understands the learner journey.
Every Boost tutor is a current university student, undergraduate or postgraduate, appointed to teach within the discipline they are studying. They sat these examinations recently enough to remember precisely where the paper turns, and they are close enough in age to be spoken to honestly.
Appointment & oversight
How a tutor earns a class.
Being a strong student is the entry requirement, not the qualification. Tutors are interviewed, matched deliberately, and held to a written standard of practice that their lessons are reviewed against.
Appointed, not assigned
Matching is done on curriculum, subject, grade and temperament, by a person who has read the learner's situation, not by a directory or a first-available rota.
A written standard
Tutors work to a documented set of lesson standards covering preparation, pacing, marking and the quality of feedback sent home.
Reviewed, and developed
Tutors meet regularly for standards and development review. Teaching is a craft, and the academy is responsible for improving it, not merely for hiring it.
Changed when it is not working
Where a placement is not working, we change the tutor rather than ask the family to persist. Continuity matters, but not more than progress.
Learn with us, or teach with us.
We take on a small number of new learners each term, and we appoint tutors continuously from South Africa's leading universities.