Elizabeth

In the last six years, my students were accepted to schools including: Westminster School, Alleyns, St Pauls, St Pauls Girls School, St Dunstans College, Dulwich College, Caterham, Whitgift, Wallington High School for Girls, City of London School for Boys, Trinity, Royal Russell and Cedars.

My GCSE students moved up an average of five grades, with each attaining grades 8/9 - all of which began which mock results of 3/4.

I also teach undergraduate students at universities such as SOAS, Goldsmiths, UCL and QMUL. All of my undergraduate students achieved minimum 2:1 degrees at final assessment.

I have a First Class Honours Degree in English Literature from the University of Warwick and a Masters with Distinction from Kings College London.

I am a patient, rigorous and effective tutor who specialises in English Literature (from early years to undergraduate level), Creative Writing and entrance exams - 11+ and 13+: grammar school entrance and independent school entrance.

Tutoring Experience

As a tutor and practitioner I am patient and empathetic yet always task-focused. I like to listen to work out how each person ticks: what they feel they can’t do, and conversely, the aspects of a task or subject area which they are, or could be, naturally passionate about. I don’t just believe in making people feel unique, I truly am excited by the diverse qualities different brains can bring to a text, idea or challenge. I am rigorous without without being intimidating and firmly believe that there is no set way to teach or explain - only a million creative approaches to a problem.

I am adept, searching and perceptive at looking at a text and imparting ways to analyse or criticise it, and constantly excited by the ways texts are constructed and how this creates their meaning. I have studied on high-level creative writing programmes at the Royal Court Theatre and RADA and have a very solid grounding in creative writing techniques, and have understandings of both formal and creative ways of stimulating the imagination.

Tutoring Approach

I have a deep and instinctive love of arts and humanities and believe that there should be no limit of access for young people. I try to instil the excitement I have with engaging with texts, with a wider sense of understanding of the cultural and societal value of engaging with the arts.

I believe that it is the one-on-one tutor’s responsibility to get to the heart of what could interest a child - be it an aspect of a subject, or merely a teaching style or method. I am open and positive and I feel strongly that my experience in different work environments means I am used to thinking on my feet to quickly resolve problems and situations which could potentially be difficult.

I am a skilled teacher of KS3 English and cover the following topics to provide the knowledge and skills to enter the GCSE year.

KS3
- Paragraph writing using PEE / PEEL / PETER
- Critical thinking: inference, prediction, constructing an argument
- Medieval Literature: Beowulf, Chaucer, Sir Gawain
- Detective Fiction: The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
- Non-fiction writing: Journalism
- Renaissance to Romantic: introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets and the forms used by Blake and Wordsworth
- Victorian to Modern: introduction to conventions of Victorian novel and poetry; the key ideas and concerns of the Modernist era
- Bildungsroman: study of one coming of age novel e.g. I Capture the Castle, Great Expectations, The Magic Toyshop

For students wanting GCSE/A-Level and Undergraduate-level tuition in English Literature, I have experience of teaching the AQA and Edexcel GCSE syllabi and AQA-A, AQA-B, OCR and Edexcel specifications for A-Level.

GCSE
- Shakespeare: Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night
- Poetry: Power and Conflict and Love through the Ages
- 20th Century: An Inspector Calls, Animal Farm, Never Let me Go
- 19th Century: A Christmas Carol, Jekyll and Hyde, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations

A-Level
- Dystopian Fiction: A Handmaid's Tale and 1984
- Colonisation and its aftermath - The Lonely Londoners, Heart of Darkness
- Women in Literature: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Mrs Dalloway, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Bloody Chamber
- The Supernatural / Gothic: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Little Stranger, Dracula, Frankenstein, Beloved
- American Literature: The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath
- Shakespeare: King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, Richard II
- Drama: A Streetcar Named Desire, Doctor Faustus, The Duchess of Malfi, A Doll's House, The Importance of being Earnest, An Ideal Husband
- Poetry: Christina Rossetti, Coleridge, Tennyson, Post-2000 poetry, Carol Ann Duffy, The Romantics, The Victorians, Modernist Poetry, Philip Larkin and The Movement
-Love through the Ages poetry (pre-1900 and post-1900)
-Social and political protest writing
-Crime writing

Please note I have a 48 hour cancellation policy