I am a professional tutor who graduated from Cambridge with a 1st class BA degree and an MPhil in Education and Literature - I have been tutoring ever since.
I tailor my tutoring to best fit my student's needs and learning style. With extensive experience ranging from primary to undergraduate students, I am confident tutoring for students of different ability and interest levels.
As a published academic writer with experience of private school and Oxbridge admissions processes, I am further confident tutoring to an extremely high level of tuition for a number of top-level schools and universities. Past students have gone on to study at Harrow, Eton, a number of London private schools and of course Oxford and Cambridge, among other universities.
My successes with students are not only due to my own expertise, however, but to my passion for inspiring a love of English in my students as well! During our time together my students not only come to feel more confident in the subject, but also to enjoy it!
I have 23 years of experience in tutoring learners to achieve their goals. I tutor GCSE, A-Level, CAIE/CIE, EPQ, IB, PRE-U, Undergraduate, Postgraduate/Doctoral students, UCAS and Oxbridge applicants, and professional clients in Academic Research and Writing, Business Studies, Creative Industries, Critical Thinking, Cultural Studies, Drama, Education, English, Essay Writing, Film, Government and Politics, Marketing, Media, Oxbridge Entrance/UCAS, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Social Sciences, Theology, Theory of Knowledge, and Visual Arts.
I combine two decades of experience in the education sector with my earlier career in the creative industries to offer engaging learning opportunities relevant to our daily lives. I am a passionate advocate of 'affective' learning and well-being through creativity, critical inquiry and philosophical reasoning. I invite you to engage in these ways of thinking that can empower you with relevant skills to support your personal growth. I have extensive experience in tutoring GCSE, A-Level, CAIE/CIE, IB, PRE-U, EPQ, Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Professional learners. My presentation style is engaging and interactive. I convert complicated theories and paradigms into straightforward ideas, with practical worth, and impart useful advice for my clients.
Having been tutored myself in the past, I understand what being in a pupil's shoes is like. From there I then started tutoring after having developed a passion in education and learning. I have since tutored children as young as five to adults from a wide range of ages. This means that not only have I learnt how to adapt my teaching from individual to individual but also to adapt my level of tutoring based on age and/or past experience in the subjects that I tutor.
The last student I tutored on Spires achieved an A at A level French.
I have worked as a professional tutor and educational consultant for six years. I have taught dozens of students for thousands of hours in total. I have also worked as a teacher in an independent school in North London.
I have had many successful students; a few examples include:
>Three admitted to study HSPS at Cambridge.
>One admitted to all three of Westminster, Winchester, and St.Paul's for 13+.
>One who gained 84/84 marks in his A-Level Politics Paper 2, which is now being used as an exemplar.
>One who gained an A in A-Level History after being predicted a C.
I believe that the most important virtue in a tutor is the ability to empathise with a student's cognitive position. When teaching I aim to guide a student through the mental steps needed to accomplish the goal of the lesson.
I typically spend much of a lesson in dialogue with the student. I break this up with exercises to embed and reinforce key points, but I always end the lesson with a call to reflection on what the student has learned. I emphasise that knowledge is open-ended and interconnected.
I have been tutoring for over 20 years and was Head of Department and teacher of English in a leading online school for ten years. I have taught all aspects of English Language and Literature from providing assistance at undergraduate level, through A Levels and GCSEs, down to KS1. What I love about tutoring one-to-one is the building up of a personal relationship with a student and seeing them gain confidence and develop. Every student is different and learns in a different way, and I have a firm belief that, given the right teacher, everyone can do really well in English. I have also taught History to GCSE and KS3 and run Drama groups, and have participated in additional tutoring for LAMDA.
I have 2 TEFL certificates and have tutored for IELTS/TOEFL/C2 as well as having taught practical conversational English to mixed age/ability groups.
I have worked in a French high school (with a further education section) as an English Assistant Teacher, leading whole classes, small conversation groups, and one-on-one practices. In this role, I planned lessons, learnt effective teaching methods, and aimed to create a comfortable atmosphere for students to grow more confident in. I worked with many different departments - standard high school English, product design, international marketing, cosmetology, you name it. Everyone had different aims and purposes for learning, and thus I adapted accordingly.
Additionally, I worked at two summer schools for Japanese students coming to learn English over four summers during my degree. As a mentor, I constantly tried to make learning engaging for my students, finding a more relaxed and friendly approach to learning. An important part of learning is creating a good environment, so students who are struggling, or afraid of failing, feel comfortable enough to fulfil the potential that EVERY student has.
More recently, I have worked as a kids art teacher in an after-school programme. Art history is something seen as fairly inaccessible to kids. However, part of the challenge and fun of teaching is taking a complicated subject matter and explaining it at the student's level.
I have been a professional tutor since 2006.
Across all of the different subjects I teach, I always notice the same thing: the main difficulty that learners encounter is getting overwhelmed by what they're trying to learn. It could be that there seems to be simply too much material to cover; it could be that the concepts seem too difficult; it could be that the whole thing causes anxiety for some completely different reason which is apparently unrelated to the 'academic' side of things.
I help remove anxiety, regardless of what form it might take, in whatever way seems like it will help each individual most. Before long, it becomes possible to see the task in hand with different eyes – indeed, more importantly, at this point most of my students come to see their own abilities entirely differently. They may have come to me with a fixed idea of what they are 'bad' at, but I help them to realise that they have skills they hardly suspected.
I have a solid grasp of all core subjects however my expertise lies with psychology, English language and literature. I have been tutoring students of all ages for the past 6 years, ranging from young children to mature adults. In my past experience I have had several students increase by at least two grade boundaries in the target subject. I am able to help with essay writing, exam techniques, understanding difficult concepts and hopefully bring about a love for the subject! I have experience marking and helping students write essays, from GCSE to postgraduate. I have also had experience teaching advanced grammar at different colleges and have given lectures on language development. I have worked at university as a Mandarin Chinese tutor to both English and Chinese students. I am educated to doctoral level in language and psychology and have spent my postdoctoral years mentoring undergraduate students. I have also co-lectured a university module in phonetics.
I have tutored for several years. I was an A level tutor at Greenehad college while a student there; I recieved the highest A level marks for this subject in the country. I have been invited back to Greenhead several times and given lectures/private tuition on advamced grammar and child language acquisition. At Lancaster University I tutored English to native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, I also did this in Beijing China.
I have over nine years' tutoring experience, as a full-time professional. I've been teaching students online since 2013 and altogether with online and face-to-face I've delivered well over 3000 hours of individual and group classes to more than 150 national and international pupils. I have wide experience teaching all ages, all Key Stages and the full range of exam boards at GCSE, A Level an IB. I've taught several pupils as part of bespoke homeschooling programmes and that includes students following the US curriculum. Every year I prepare a handful of students for Oxbridge and I've had lots of success, having students get in first time and others get in after trying once without tuition and then coming me and getting in the second time round.
I've had truly excellent results at all ages and have helped students both set and exceed their own personal goals. Pupils of mine have gone to Westminster, St Pauls, Eton, Harrow on scholarship, Latymer, KCS Wimbledon, NLGC, Frances Holland, etc. And I've built some wonderful working relationships with both the students and the parents along the way.
My main tutoring work is in preparing students for the American standardized exams; I have experience with the SAT, SAT-2 (Subject Tests), ACT, GRE, GMAT, ISEE and SSAT. I have helped over 200 students with their exams; of these, more than one-third made successful applications to Ivy League schools or major business schools.
I specialise in Verbal for all tests and have a strong record of helping students accomplish top scores through my own system of strategies, fine-tuned for each individual for optimal results. Where applicable, I ensure all students have a rock-solid foundation and a whole tool kit of strategies designed specifically for each element of the test.
I have helped with the all of the aforementioned exams in a variety of different teaching scenarios. As well as working face to face, I have also taught extensively online via Skype. Numerous students have been apprentices with Premier League Youth Academies, including those at Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, who have required particularly attentive tutoring to help them make up for gaps in their knowledge due to their heavy sporting schedules. I have taught people with learning difficulties and I also have plenty of experience in working with younger students, from 8 and up, on the ISEE and SSAT.
