Daniel

Hi there, if you are looking for Oxbridge admissions tuition or A-level tuition, you won’t find a better, more committed tutor anywhere else. My success rate (invitation to interview) for Oxbridge Admissions tests in 2020/21 was in excess of 90%, I have personally taken students from a D at A-level Maths up to an A* and this year (2021) I am extremely proud to have had a 100% success rate (5/5) for my STEP students in achieving their offers (the average acceptance rate for a STEP offer holder to Cambridge is <50%).

My teaching style can be summed up by simply mentioning the full Physics A-level textbook I have written for my students. I do not enjoy writing textbooks, nor was I paid to do so. However, the available other materials were so lacklustre that I felt it would help my students perform better if they had a book I had written myself, so I wrote one. My enjoyment from tutoring comes from the impact I have; if I am not doing my best to help students, I can`t enjoy it.
The fact that I am young (25) and recently went through the exams that students are sitting allows me to have a more comfortable and fun, relaxed atmosphere in lessons; I aim to have a more friend-like relationship with students than may be common with an older tutor.

For more information on why I believe I am able to prepare students for Oxbridge admissions so successfully, please see the "My experience" section of this page. For general information on my teaching style, please see the below.

For GMAT students, my score is 790 (50Q 51V, 8 IR, 6 AWA). I achieved this score first time without much prep time by focussing on coming up with reliable, easy ways to solve questions. Please get in touch if you would like to know more.

I believe it`s important to find the right kind of tutor for each student, so the following is reasonably extensive explanation of my style, so that it is clear what it is I feel I can offer that is unique and different. My style is primarily focussed on having a long term positive impact, rather than simply teaching a particular topic week to week.

What do people expect out of a tutor?
The basic view is that, if a student is struggling with a syllabus or topic, a tutor can help them to understand that topic.
It is my view that that is only a tiny part of what a tutor can offer and somewhat misses the bigger picture.
I do not view tutoring as simply teaching methods and techniques week to week on different topics. While that is (obviously!) necessary and helpful, I aim to make a much bigger and longer term impact in other ways.
My overall style and methods are centered around tackling four areas, all of which are extremely important:
1) Confidence
2) Problem solving ability
3) Knowledge
4) Exam preparation and technique

Areas 1, 2 and 4 are often neglected by tutors and teachers. This is a huge mistake, as they are crucial to exam performance. They are also, however, somewhat tricky to learn and teach, and so must be given careful thought. The following is a brief outline of the way in which I go about working on these areas - for a more detailed descri ption please look at the `articles` section of my profile.

1) Teaching a structured, reliable and rigorous question approach to be applied on every question. This reliable go-to method is designed to make difficult questions easy, and is focussed on removing the `I have no idea what to do` panic reaction that difficult questions tend to cause. The videos on my profile show examples of the question approach being put into practice on questions which are far above the difficulty of standard A-level questions to make them simple and easy to tackle.
This question approach is my way of teaching `problem solving` ability; it focuses on providing a set checklist of steps to follow on all questions, even (and especially) those which the student does not know immediately how to solve

2) Make as many topics as easy as possible by focussing on simple algorithmic methods to apply to questions. This means that answering even difficult questions tends to come down to running through a set sequence of easy steps. The more that difficult questions can be made to feel formulaic and standard, the less fear and more confidence students tend to feel about the subject

3) Change students` views on whether questions are actually difficult or they simply do not know the material yet. While always a controversial claim at first, there are very few truly difficult questions, even in the new A-levels, and proving this to students is crucial to building confidence and removing fear around the subject.
This helps to shift their mindset from "I can`t do this topic, it`s too hard and I am bad at this subject" to the more helpful (and accurate) mindset of "I can`t do this topic yet so I do not have the required knowledge. I need to spend more time searching for an explanation that makes sense and simply learn the topic more thoroughly"

4) Explain the topics on the syllabus on a deeper level than is covered in the book, with an emphasis on understanding what is actually going on rather than just applying set steps without understanding. This is particularly helpful for tackling the new A-level questions as they tend to be harder and emphasise understanding more

5) Prove to students that their level of competency in a subject, while partially dictated by natural ability, is actually far, far more linked to pure time commitment and hard work than popular belief would suggest. This is crucially important: if a student believes they just are "bad at Maths" and that cannot be changed, as most do, then they will never fulfill their potential and will most likely remain "bad at maths", which is a shame as it is simply not true

6) How to abuse markschemes, particularly in Physics, but also in a huge range of other subjects, in order to get the highest grades. Due to the stupidity of markschemes, often even strong students do not perform well, as the exams are actually more about knowing what will tick the right boxes, rather than necessarily just being good at the subject & knowing the material. This, in my experience, is simply not taught well, if at all, in schools and is what I credit a large part of my examination success to

7) Teach students how to self teach, revise, and cover best exam technique practices

8) Show how certain practices shown generalise to other subjects and that achieving top grades follows essentially the same formula cross subject

Availability: Flexible availability, with lessons offered at students` homes or online. I tutor full time and 7 days a week, so the likelihood is that we will be able to find a slot that works!

Willing to travel: 15 miles

Experience: Full-time private tutor for several years now with over 5,000 hours private tutoring specifically for A-level Maths and Physics, Oxbridge admissions and GMAT.

Also work with "The Profs" as an Oxbridge admissions consultant within their Oxbridge Consultancy division, and hold mock interview preparation courses within schools.

My best results from the last academic year (2020-21):

Oxbridge admissions: 9 out of 10 students were successfully invited to interview, of which 6 were given an offer and all 6 made their offer.

This year (2021) I am extremely proud to have had a 100% success rate (5/5) for my STEP students in achieving their offers (the average acceptance rate for a STEP offer holder to Cambridge is under 50%).

Pradeep - From a C in A-level Maths to an A* in his resit year (Now studying Economics at UCL - for which I am teaching him the maths content of his course)

Victor - From D/B in A-level Physics and Maths to A A* in his resit year (Now studying Economics and Finance at Bristol - for which I am also teaching him the maths content of his course)

My key to Oxbridge admissions:

When I first started preparing for STEP, the papers crushed me __ I was not able to solve the questions. Through sheer stubbornness and hard work, I spent likely over a thousand hours on coming up with methods for STEP (and hence other Oxbridge admissions tests) to make the questions easier. This worked; I ended up scoring S (outstanding) on both STEP II and III and achieving the 98th percentile.

I now pass the lessons I learnt from that experience on to my students; my extensive preparation for and teaching of STEP, which is based on the Maths and Further Maths A-level syllabuses, means I have now spent thousands of hours on coming up with methods to make difficult questions on A-level material as easy and predictable as possible. I feel that these methods are a large part of what distinguishes me from other tutors. They were born out of a need to make seemingly impossible questions on A-level material seem easy, which mirrors exactly the challenge that many students feel they are facing with A-level Maths and Physics or Oxbridge admissions tests. My methods saw me through my degree too; I was able to achieve a first in every year simply by teaching myself in the same way I now teach my students.

In general I find helping people in a way that can impact their life for the better, long term, extremely rewarding and fun, and so I very much enjoy my work as a tutor. My enjoyment is tied to the impact I have, so I am always looking for new things to implement and new offerings to improve my impact.

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