Harry

I am a University College London graduate with an MSci in Physics and a PGCE from Oxford University specialising in physics teaching.

I offer tutoring both for general subject knowledge and exam performance, often in the same session as needed. My aim is always to raise the student`s confidence and knowledge of the subject. So many students give up on questions that they know the answers to, just because they don`t instantly understand the question!

For general subject knowledge you can expect me to help you to identify the areas in which you are struggling and focus on them.
I believe the most effective way to learn is live conversational problem solving, where we work through a question together fully discussing every step of the working, followed by example questions with instant feedback.

For exam performance I believe that there are three areas that all students should focus on:

Knowledge: Knowledge is the backbone of all of your exam answers. Both memorisation and understanding are important, but the better your overall understanding of a topic, the less memorisation you will need to do. While memorisation is helpful for many exam questions, there will always be a few questions that require a more in-depth understanding of the topic, and to get the highest marks you will need to be able to answer them.

Exam technique: A common problem that many students face is not answering the question that is being asked, and instead just stating knowledge related to the topic. There are many tips and tricks that can help you to identify which questions are simply looking for a statement of a fact that you have memorised, and which questions are looking for deeper analysis. By looking at things like the phrasing of the question and the number of marks available, you can much more easily work out the level of detail expected in your answer.

Time management: Many teachers give the benchmark of 1 mark per minute as the pace that you should be aiming for during an exam. I don`t agree with this as it assumes that all questions are equally difficult. Many similar exam questions appear on papers every year. If you can identify these common questions quickly you may be able to answer a 3 mark question in only 30 seconds, freeing up more time to think about your answers to the more difficult questions.

Knowledge is obviously key to exam performance, but many students who perform poorly in exams are often lacking in one or more of the other key areas, or worse, haven`t thought about them at all. I encounter so many students that are able to explain things to me reasonably well in a conversation, but struggle to translate that conversational understanding into a concise answer on the exam, and so earn very few marks. Understanding the content and understanding the exam are two totally different things, and effective training in all three of the areas I have discussed above is important for maximum exam success.

Providing either a completed past paper (or an idea of which areas of the syllabus you want to focus on) before the start of the session would be appreciated, as it allows me to prepare content specifically for you.

Feel free to reach out if you need any more information!

Availability: I will be away from July 20th to August 17th, but will be available otherwise, I am also happy to take bookings for September.

I am currently available (last updated 16/6/26):
Monday: fully booked
Tuesday: 3-4pm, 4-5pm, 5-6pm
Wednesday: 3-4pm, 6-7pm
Thursday: 3-4pm, 4-5pm, 6-7pm, 7-8pm, 8-9pm
Friday: 5-6pm, 6-7pm, 7-8pm, 8-9pm

Willing to travel: Home Only

Experience: I have three years of experience as a dedicated tutor, and have successfully helped many students to optimise their exam performance and achieve the grades that they deserved, often one or two grades higher than what they were predicted before they started tutoring with me.

DBS Check: Yes