“We exist to help children feel they
can do anything.”
We founded Oppidan in 2016 on a single, simple idea: children benefit from the direction and advocacy of empathetic, supportive adults who help nurture their aims and aspirations in and outside of school. Adults have mentors, kids should too.
The business was born out of a frustration with the incumbent in a market largely made up of hot-house, prescriptively academic tutoring firms. Its genesis was very much connected though with my own experience as a young boy going through his teenage years in need of the same support a mentor would give. I remember sleepwalking through much of my adolescent years – I would only later come to realise it was the support of a mentor that I needed at the time.
We made Oppidan to build what was missing.
That work has now expanded to over 10,000 students annually, both privately and in over 250 schools. Centred on a framework of research that underpins a character education approach to 1:1 support, the impact of our work points to two conclusions: our work helps young people enter competitive destinations around the world, whether secondary schools or universities and colleges. But more than that, it gives them confidence – and, as the data suggests, confidence to go on and achieve what they want to do.
We could have said "help children do anything" but we felt “feel” better explained that sense of self-motivation. “Help” would have been a promise about outcomes, and nobody can honestly make that case. Children will sit exams that go badly. They'll have conversations that don't land. That's childhood, and it's how we all learn.
What we can change though is how a child walks into those moments. A child who feels they can do something approaches it differently. They prepare with purpose, ask for help sooner and bounce back faster when it goes wrong. Belief comes first. The doing tends to follow.
So whether it’s the 11+, a school interview, a difficult conversation with your mum, approaching your UCAS or job interview, our mentors help children feel that anything is achievable.
They are the advocate in their corner.
Today’s young people face unprecedented complexity in a digital and increasingly isolated world. We exist to help children feel they can do anything. With the right person in their corner, they can.