Ria

Creative Humanities Tutor and Personal Statement Advisor
I enjoy tutoring for the reward of seeing a student improve their analytical and essay-writing skills. I have an excellent grasp of my subjects with an Oxbridge degree in History and French (language and literature) and an A* in all A-levels and GCSEs. Having spent my year abroad teaching in two French lycées, I am used to adapting my teaching style and pace to the specific needs of my students.

I feel very enthusiastic about coaching students for both Oxbridge and general university admissions. In just one or two sessions, I can help students produce a compelling personal statement. I received offers from Kings College London, University College London, Durham and Warwick alongside Oxford so am confident that I can help you make a very strong application.

I am a good planner, can work under pressure and express myself clearly. I am an effective tutor because I aim to adapt myself to the needs and the learning style of individual students.

My approach changes according to the needs of the student at hand. For example, over the last year, I have been supporting a student working towards their OCR History A-level. Checking over their classwork, I identified their exam essay structure as an area to be improved. Conversations with the student confirmed their struggle to organise different ideas into a clear, unified argument. To help them with this, I brought specific excerpts of the exam board specification to their attention so that they could be more aware of the criteria they would be marked against. I offered them advice on how best to use the first 8-10 minutes of an exam for effectively dissecting exam questions and planning their response. I offered detailed feedback on practice questions that they completed for homework. For questions that required a more intricate structure, I wrote exemplar paragraphs that they were able to use as models when writing essays in the run-up to their exams.

There is no set format for a lesson. Sometimes lessons are designed to respond to concerns students have about classwork. Other times, a series of lessons might be devoted to developing a larger project such as the completion of coursework or revision of content for an exam module.

I might, for example, divide a lesson in two. With a recent A-level English student, the first half hour was devoted to expanding their understanding of `The Taming of the Shrew` with reference to critical journal articles and close analyses of passages of the play. The second half was spent annotating and analysing an example of protest writing that the candidate had never seen to prepare them for the first section of an A2 examination.

Availability: I am happy to negotiate a time that works well for both of us. I also offer online lessons.

Willing to travel: 1 miles

Experience: Degree in History and French from Oxford University

A-levels:
French, English, History: A*

DBS Check: Yes