First Tutors have yet to make any official statement. There has been no communication from them whatsoever.
The website has been down since around 17th April. As of today, it displays: “This service is currently unavailable for maintenance. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.” The company is associated with three other entities (Nerdy Inc, Varsity, and Edunation), yet none have provided a clear explanation.
There is no reliable way to contact them. Emails go unanswered (some have even bounced), and the phone number leads to an automated answering machine.
Several tutors have reached out to Nerdy and Varsity directly. The responses have been vague at best, with both companies now appearing to distance themselves from First Tutors. Early replies mentioned “technical issues” but offered little substance. If you've emailed either company, please share the address so more of us can follow up. The responses from Nerdy Inc and Varsity have been inconsistent.
I am Henry, a Maths/Science tutor who has been using First Tutors for 15 years. I am also a developer, with experience at running platforms hosting millions of users. Faced with the prospect of First Tutors not coming back, I decided to build a successor platform that will operate on the same principles, because there are no real alternatives out there.
Since I already run StudyDex, a platform for past papers and progress tracking, I decided to build a tutor marketplace alongside it. Even if First Tutors were to return, a significant amount of trust has been lost, as evidenced by their complete lack of communication.
I'll be rolling out TutorDex in phases:
You can join our Discord or WhatsApp group and keep updated, suggest features, report bugs, ask for help, refer students to each other, etc.