Esmond

Ciao! I`m Esmond. I`m a writer, composer, artist, director, tutor and singer, and prizewinning History finalist at the University of Oxford, working towards an academic career, with experience of a broad range of pedagogical approaches, learning environments and teaching styles, multidisciplinary specialisms across the arts and humanities, and substantial industry experience in music and the creative arts. Deeply passionate about my subjects, I`m dedicated to each of my students and enthusiastic about sharing the joy of learning with them. I have extensive knowledge across the arts and humanities, especially of history, music, art and literature. I tutor History, Music, History of Art and Latin to A-Level, IB and equivalent, and English, Design and Technology (Graphic Design route) and Maths to (I)GCSE and equivalent. I also provide mentoring, including guidance on personal statements, submitted work, admissions tests and interviews, for students applying to study History and related subjects at both Oxbridge and other universities. More broadly, I work with students at all levels to develop essay writing, research, problem-solving and study skills.

I seek above all to make my tutoring engaging, dynamic and exciting, while ensuring a thorough and holistic coverage of topics. My tutoring style is greatly influenced by my own fruitful experiences of home education (to age eleven) and the Oxbridge tutorial format. I prioritise the greater scope for intellectual flexibility and curiosity, intrinsically-motivated learning, and heightened freedom to range across subjects and pursue individual topics in greater depth according to each student’s interests characteristic of both of these learning environments. I combine these foci with rigorous attention to exam syllabi to ensure that tuition and learning remain carefully targeted towards any extrinsic learning goals such as desired grades in traditional summative assessments (for example, school entrance exams, GCSEs and A-Levels).

All my tutoring is student-centred, guiding and facilitating my students in their own learning, in contrast to traditional teacher-centred instruction. I work with each student to tailor tutoring sensitively to his or her individual learning style, personality, interests and priorities (whether understanding subject material, exam content, or honing particular skills such as analysis or argument). I place particular emphasis on developing a deep-seated passion for learning in my students and on encouraging them to think independently, critically and originally. I am, moreover, dedicated to seeing tangible improvement in each and every one of my students and will always put in extra effort to achieve this end. The particular breadth of my own academic, intellectual and creative interests and the contagiousness of my own love of learning provide a strong foundation from which I am able to deepen my students` interest in learning across a wide range of fields, both building on – and stretching and challenging them within – their existing areas of interests and extending their horizons elsewhere.

Availability: I currently have a flexible schedule and can make many times work; please get in touch for details.

Willing to travel: 50 miles

Experience: I have substantial experience of a diverse range of pedagogical frameworks, learning environments and teaching styles, including online and face-to-face private tuition, home education, project- and inquiry-based learning, the Oxbridge tutorial format and classroom-style teaching in both the private and state sectors.

My tutoring, teaching and mentoring experience extends over the past seven years. I worked as a Teaching Assistant at Chelsea Academy, London, in 2013-14, as part of the Outreach Scheme there of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford. I have led and assisted classes for year groups from Year 7 to GCSE and ability levels from top to bottom sets, worked with children with Special Educational Needs, and mentored Oxbridge applicants. More recently, I have tutored privately in various humanities subjects, English as a Second or Other Language, and Music. I have further developed creative and effective coaching and teaching methods in the course of work, totalling several hundred rehearsal hours, as an experienced musical director and stage director, and clear and engaging communication of complex content and ideas through numerous seminar talks and presentations across the disciplines I teach. My greatest expertise is in the arts and humanities but I have also previously taught STEM subjects to GCSE. I am confident preparing candidates for school entrance exams and public exams, such as GCSEs and A-Levels; supervising EPQs, dissertations and other extended projects; mentoring students for university entrance, as well as in academic and creative prose composition and essay writing, research and study skills; and tutoring and devising personalised curricula beyond an exam or formal assessment context. I have tutored a number of adult learners as well as children. I am a registered tutor with several tutoring agencies.

Currently a finalist in History at the University of Oxford, I have held a range of academic and music scholarships across my degree. I attained one of the highest Distinctions (Firsts) in the First Public Examination, ranking equal fourth across the University. Besides history, my degree pathway has also involved considerable interdisciplinary work in the visual arts, literature, music and folklore (as well as reasonable crossover with philosophy, religious studies, Classics, and anthropology), and substantial language work and primary research in Latin, French, Italian and Middle English, in which I have research-level proficiency. I have A-Levels in History, Latin and Music (all above 90%), AS-Level Maths (A), and 11 A*s at IGCSE and GCSE. I have extensive knowledge of a broad range of history, music, art and literature, with particular expertise in the medieval, Renaissance and early Modern periods, the eighteenth century, the European folk revival, and – in music – post-tonal composition, although I also teach more broadly, including on modern topics.

My teaching in Music and Design and Technology is further underpinned by extensive industry experience in music (as a composer, director, producer and singer), graphic design and the creative arts more broadly. I produced and artistically directed my first opera production, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, in 2016, with an international cast comprising current and former singers from several leading British and European conservatoires, and I’m currently Artistic Director and co-Musical Director of the emerging professional early music and early opera ensemble, Theatron Oneiron, which I founded in 2016. As a freelance composer, my compositions have won competitions at a national level and been performed by such artists as the BBC Singers. I’m also a classically trained, semi-professional singer, currently a Choral Exhibitioner in the Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and formerly a Choral Scholar at Guildford Cathedral and Exeter College, Oxford, and a member of the Iken Scholars among many other ensembles; and I frequently perform as a recitalist and as a soloist in oratorios and opera. In art and design, my experience encompasses artistic and technical drawing, product design, poster design, and production design for the stage, and my previous work includes an award-winning scaled model and card model kit of Guildford Cathedral.

My own research interests include medieval Arthurian literature; art, lay religiosity and culture in the Italian Renaissance; syncretic receptions of Classical literature and culture from Petrarch to Ficino; rhetoric and stagecraft in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian and English theatre and music drama; social reality and escapism in Victorian painting and poetry; faery tales and folk literature; societal uses and cultural significations of the preternatural; Native American legends and material culture; and the history of childhood.