# Lucy Oldershaw

Lucy Oldershaw is the founder of Supportive Stories, which helps tuition businesses improve CRM systems, tutor onboarding, safer recruitment and day-to-day operations. The business also supports families through a network of associates.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/lucy-oldershaw/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-oldershaw
- LinkedIn followers: 1,122
- Topics: recruiting
- Based on 13 dated posts, latest 2026-08-19

## Summary

Lucy Oldershaw is most useful for helping tuition businesses turn safer recruitment and CRM needs into practical workflows.

- Best for: A tuition company or education operations platform needing safer recruitment, CRM setup, tutor onboarding, or operations support.
- Not for: A consumer brand seeking broad reach, parent audience, or paid creator sponsorship measured by impressions.
- Check first: Confirm commercial terms, audience data, and whether they offer sponsorship or paid creator formats.

### Takeaways

- A CV alone does not meet safer recruitment standards or cover a safer-recruitment declaration.
- At least the business owner and one admin team member should have safer recruitment training.
- Compliance is annual maintenance, not a one-off setup, with reminders for renewals.

## Main ideas

- **A CV alone does not meet safer recruitment standards**: A CV is useful when recruiting a tutor, but it is not designed to meet safer recruitment requirements, Oldershaw argues. The application form should include a specific line stating that it is a criminal offence to apply for a role while barred from working with children, signed by the applicant. That signature makes the form a legal declaration: the applicant confirms on record that they are not barred. In practice, the form needs to exist separately from the CV and ask the question.
- **Safer recruitment is a team capability, not the owner's burden**: Safer recruitment guidance says anyone involved in recruiting people to work with children should have safer recruitment training. For tuition businesses, Oldershaw says, that usually means training at least two people. The owner sets the process, signs off on checks and takes responsibility for who works with the children and families the business serves. At least one admin team member handles applications day to day, checking DBS certificates, chasing references and spotting gaps. Without both, the owner either does everything — which does not scale — or expects untrained staff to catch problems, which Oldershaw calls unfair on them and unsafe. Training the team makes safer recruitment consistent, rather than one person's mental burden that falls apart when the owner takes a day off.
- **Compliance is annual maintenance, not a one-off setup**: Oldershaw's 'Summer Sprint' is a recurring programme for clients who already have systems running. It covers three areas: reviewing safer recruitment, from the advert and job spec through to post-interview checks; reviewing policies in light of changes to data protection legislation; and sending every tutor an updated annual safeguarding declaration and current policies, every year without fail. The quieter summer months are the right time for this maintenance, Oldershaw argues. The difference is between a business that hopes it is compliant and one that knows it is. For providers who have not reviewed their systems recently, they add that most have had no reason to look until now.
- **Regulatory updates become concrete data requirements**: Oldershaw tracks changes such as KCSIE and data protection legislation, then translates them into what tuition providers will actually be asked for. They credit Holly Goodwin with key takeaways from the KCSIE updates and note that the NSPCC's weekly update highlighted added clarity for alternative provision commissioners — schools and local authorities. For providers who may be commissioned to educate students not currently in traditional settings, Oldershaw lists three expectations: written confirmation of safeguarding checks and risk assessments; records of all addresses where children might attend; and regular reviews of placements for safety and suitability. The operational answers range from forms that collect DBS details, training certificates and reference contacts in a database or CRM to documented reviews with a clear escalation procedure. The case is commercial as well as legal: schools and local authorities want providers who make safeguarding easy, not complicated, so systems should be in place before they are needed.
- **Depth over sprawl: use the systems you already have**: Rather than adding tools, Oldershaw recommends making full use of existing systems. A CRM such as TutorCruncher or Airtable can hold addresses, teaching venues and session locations in one place, link student records to specific venues and tutors, set tasks for placement reviews and send automated reminders for renewals. Using more than one tool is fine, they say, as long as each is learned well. The problem is spreading data randomly across multiple platforms and duplicating work. The same principle informs the service offers: CRM setup and implementation, safer recruitment systems, and an operations audit to find gaps before they become risks.
- **Systems as a way to bring calm to pressure**: Oldershaw traces their operating approach to 19 years of military life, listing flexibility and problem solving, resilience and adaptability under pressure, building relationships quickly, systems thinking, understanding transitions and change, cultural awareness, and experience across teaching, tutoring, mentoring and training. The aim is to bring 'genuine calm to chaos' and create systems that work under pressure. That experience informs operational advice built around reliability in difficult conditions, rather than novelty.
- **Owners may need capacity more than another system**: Oldershaw pairs systems work with an argument about its limits. Reflecting on a full schedule of client work, meetings, business development and CPD, they describe realigning priorities and taking a short reset. They connect that experience to tuition business owners running flat out, managing tutors, families and compliance until they 'can't see the wood for the trees.' Sometimes, they argue, owners do not need more systems; they need someone to take enough off their plate to think clearly. It is a useful counterweight to the operational content: systems should bring relief and clear thinking, not add more tooling.

## Work to read

- [Why a CV alone is not enough for safer recruitment](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lucy-oldershaw_most-tuition-businesses-ask-for-a-cv-when-activity-7491017861134495744-mYJ-)
- [The Summer Sprint: annual compliance maintenance](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lucy-oldershaw_theres-a-phrase-ive-been-using-with-my-activity-7485219647437352960-3xkM)
- [Who safer recruitment training is for](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lucy-oldershaw_who-is-safer-recruitment-training-for-when-activity-7495728886950039552-OnNv)
- [KCSIE updates and alternative provision compliance](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lucy-oldershaw_the-updates-to-kcsie-were-announced-yesterday-activity-7350571319081504771-WbMY)
- [From associate VA to fractional operations manager](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lucy-oldershaw_supportivestories-educationsupport-tuitionbusiness-activity-7379040979590352897-pwoh)
- [Military spouse life and the skills behind Supportive Stories](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lucy-oldershaw_militaryspouse-entrepreneurship-virtualassistant-activity-7359330952843542529-z1zb)
- [Perspective: taking work off a tuition owner's plate](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lucy-oldershaw_tutoringbusiness-businesssupport-perspective-activity-7361147189860933632-j8YO)

## Brand relationships

- **Supportive Stories** (owned_business)
- **TutorCruncher** (mention)
- **Airtable** (mention)

## Partnerships

Lucy Oldershaw's posts don't mention sponsorship, brand partnerships or paid-content formats. The commercial relationships run the other way: Supportive Stories sells operational services to tuition businesses, including CRM setup and implementation (TutorCruncher, Airtable), safer recruitment systems, an operations audit and annual compliance maintenance called the Summer Sprint. Treat Lucy as a possible service provider or referral partner for education-sector clients, not as a creator offering an audience to sponsor. The posts name collaborators, not sponsors: Holly Goodwin on safeguarding guidance, Katie Stone on CRM setups, and a growing network of associate practitioners supporting families. Lucy directs readers to get in touch — “DM me”, “message me to book a strategy call” — or register interest in safer recruitment training. There’s no partnership page, media kit, rate card or sponsorship specification in the posts, and the LinkedIn following is small (about 1,100 at the last check), which matters for any reach-based plan. Ask directly whether Lucy considers sponsorship offers and what commercial terms apply.

## Alternatives

- Katie Stone: Choose Katie Stone over Oldershaw when the tuition company's main problem is a systems audit that needs automation or AI-assisted reporting, not just safer recruitment and CRM setup. Katie Stone describes running audits through a WhatsApp group where the client voice-notes issues as they happen, then working through them with Oldershaw before writing a bespoke audit. In a post about safeguarding training reports, Katie Stone describes using Airtable and Claude to cut report production from 30–40 minutes to 15, with a human deciding final participant quotes and reading the report. That is useful when the buyer wants to test whether AI or automation can remove admin work in an education business and wants the audit to cover those workflows alongside compliance. The tradeoff: the posts show the audit method and AI reporting workflow, but they do not document safer recruitment training, DBS or reference-check processes, or CRM implementation for tuition providers in the same detail as Oldershaw's material. If the need is specifically safer recruitment and TutorCruncher-style operations, Oldershaw is the closer match; Katie Stone is the stronger choice when automation and AI are the central question.
- Mary Harper: Choose Mary Harper instead of Lucy Oldershaw when the buyer is not a tuition company but a teacher-preparation programme, early-childhood workforce body, or policy team trying to redesign preparation or funding pathways. Mary Harper's posts focus on the Learning Policy Institute's Design Principles for Teacher Preparation, coherence between coursework and clinical practice, and Texas early-childhood scholarships and apprenticeships through the Children's Learning Institute and TXAEYC. The same campaign task changes: instead of safer recruitment and CRM operations for a tuition business, the buyer may need to explain a workforce pipeline, align accreditation and clinical partnerships, or promote CDA, apprenticeship and degree pathways. The tradeoff: these posts give no evidence of tutor onboarding, DBS checks, safer recruitment compliance, TutorCruncher or CRM implementation. For a tuition company's safer recruitment and CRM brief, Mary Harper is not the alternative; for an early-childhood workforce or educator-preparation brief, Mary Harper is the more relevant choice.
- Lauren Taylor: Choose Lauren Taylor instead of Oldershaw when the main problem is filling funded adult-training courses, not safer recruitment and CRM operations. Lauren Taylor's posts diagnose why fully funded courses stay empty: providers recruit only when a course is due to start, respond slowly to enquiries, and fail to build a year-round pipeline. The proposed fix is continuous recruitment, fast responses, success stories, weekly visibility and a dedicated recruitment process. The Skills Angels' post states it recruited over 2,700 learners in a year for UK training providers. That is a better match when the buyer is a further-education or adult-training provider whose campaign goal is enrolment volume and learner acquisition. The tradeoff: the posts do not cover safer recruitment, DBS checks, KCSIE, tutor onboarding or CRM setup. For a tuition company that needs safer recruitment and operations systems, Oldershaw is the closer choice; Lauren Taylor is the alternative when learner recruitment is the priority.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/