Many students who come to see me are already quite advanced in their core skills, but we often find that this does not always translate into consistently high or predictable results. In these cases, my role is to help students adapt and refine their existing abilities to meet the specific demands of their exam board. This is about developing the know-how to turn strong English into high-scoring exam responses: understanding the assessment objectives in detail, recognising precisely what each objective requires, and learning how to shape writing so that it consistently targets and fulfils them. The aim is to help students understand how to maximise the effectiveness of their ideas, analysis and argument so that their existing abilities translate into the marks they are capable of achieving.
Other students may need more targeted support with deficiencies in core skills such as analysis, evaluation, inference, contextual integration or the confident use of literary theory. These students can benefit from in-depth, expert lessons and carefully tailored resources designed to build those skills while also unlocking some of the more challenging texts and concepts within their syllabus. My approach is always adapted to the individual student: identifying precisely where greater understanding, practice or confidence is needed and addressing those areas systematically.
Whatever a student's starting point or requirements, my approach is fundamentally student-centred. I see myself less as a traditional teacher and more as a facilitator of learning: someone whose job is to help students become increasingly independent, thoughtful and confident thinkers. Ultimately, I want students to learn how to think for themselves rather than simply reproduce what they have been taught. This is particularly important in English and the humanities, where the ability to form, develop and defend one's own ideas is not only intellectually valuable but consistently rewarded in assessment.
I utilise a state of the art online whiteboard; I set homework each week; and produce tailored resources for each student.