John

I am a retired teacher, with two teenage daughters, both at university. My teaching career has given me extensive experience and qualifications in teaching children and young adults with a wide range of learning differences, emotional and behavioural difficulties and other additional educational needs. I have also successfully part home schooled and tutored my own daughters for some of their education. I have been able to help my youngest daughter, who is on the autism spectrum, to successfully overcome the challenges of her schooling, and to study English literature at university.

Please note that I`ve no recent feedback reviews, as I`ve been working on another Tutoring website s they were already facilitiating on line classroom sessions at the beginning of lock-down.

Availability: I am available daytime and evenings weekdays. I am available most holidays for extra catch-up consolidation sessions.

Willing to travel: Home Only

Experience: Teaching experience and qualifications

I have a 4 year B.Ed (Hons) Degree teaching children with learning disabilities at Newcastle Polytechnic (Now University) and have A levels in English Literature, Communication Studies and History.
My teaching career, mainly in London, has given me wide and varied experience ranging from teaching reception aged children with severe learning disabilities, up to GCSE level secondary school students, in an additional support department. My work has been class teaching, but I have also worked extensively with students individually in school, to help them access the curriculum.

I worked for some years as the in-school Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant coordinator. This involved coordinating extra support for children with English as an additional language. It also involved running educational parent’s meetings and workshops to support them in helping their children at achieve in school.

My teaching career has been based around assessing students’ difficulties, and planning programmes to help them access education and achieve what they want. I have specific professional and personal skills in working with students on the autism spectrum.

Teaching technique
Many students are struggling with the increasing pressures of having to achieve at school, and can come to need a personal tutor because they may have anxiety from their experiences, as well as difficulties with a particular subject. Education shouldn’t be scary, and kids often just need focused help with being able to both enjoy and have confidence in their subject.
I am patient and understanding in my teaching approach. I always suggest an initial free consultation, involving a brief assessment. I will then draw up a suggested individualised programme of study, based on each students’ needs and the time available.
Many students may be overwhelmed with exams, and arrive at tutoring in a terrible panic. I often find that they simply need targeted help with exam technique. This involves a calm look at exactly what is expected on the exam paper, and working on structured answers, tailored to the exam marking criteria. When you know what is expected of you, doing the exam successfully can quickly become achievable !
Other students may lack confidence in a subject, and may struggle in lessons, or with homework. Initially, these students will need small practical steps, aimed at improving their confidence. This will develop into a structured approach, with the objective of giving the student the relevant skills and knowledge, so that they can benefit from their lessons at school.
I love teaching English, both literature and language, and very much enjoy passing this enthusiasm on to students. Whatever the level of difficulty, I aim for students to be able to read fluently, write effectively, punctuate and spell accurately and acquire and apply a wide vocabulary. They will acquire a good knowledge and understanding of grammatical terminology, and linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language. By the end of the sessions, I would aim for students to be able to read a wide range of texts, critically and fluently and with good understanding. And most importantly, to enjoy English !

DBS Check: Yes

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