Rachel

Welcome to Rachel Briers English Services!

Tutoring Experience

Welcome to Rachel Briers English Services!

Other specialisms: IELTS exam, FCE exam, Literature Review, 11+ and 13+ entrance exams, proofreading, University personal statements. I also work with EOTAS (Education Other Than At School) and with the private exams company Tutors and Exams where I externally invigilate for private and homeschooled students.)

Hello,

My name is Rachel, I'm 28, and I recently completed my Master's degree in Medieval Studies from The University of Birmingham, and before that, I completed an English degree with First Class Honours at Loughborough University. I also received an A* in my English GCSEs (full marks on language and literature papers) and an A* in A-level English Literature (full marks in the exam/equivalent to the new grade 9).

I currently work as a University librarian and have 12 years of experience. I am also a fully qualified exams invigilator.

I am very lucky to be able to tutor both school-attending and home-educated students. Some students I spend a couple of hours with, some a few months, and others I currently have the pleasure of being with them for a couple of years in preparation for their SATs, GCSEs, or A-levels. Whatever your needs, I can promise you will find both a tutor and a friend in me and I will adapt to your needs.

I am highly academic and love to enthusiastically share my knowledge with others. Tutoring is extremely rewarding for me and I will take the time to make sure that you understand everything fully and (hopefully) develop a love for the subject! I see myself as being very calm and patient and good at explaining myself in clear spoken English. I always encourage questions and plan all of my lessons in advance to make the best use of the session.

As well as having five years of experience tutoring students in English literature and language of all levels (including creative writing, IGCSE and improving foreign students' fluency/pronunciation), I also teach GCSE (or younger students) Spanish, as I lived there for 4 years and am fluent; I received an A* for Spanish in my GCSE.

Each lesson is specifically created and tailored to my student's needs and I take pride in being 110% committed to you and to your child. I will regularly send homework in order to test and mark your child’s ability/progress and give them feedback. I do this to enhance their written ability in order to gain full marks in the exam (though I never promise certain grades). I know exactly what the exam boards are looking for since I am also a fully qualified exam invigilator and I have access to a range of past papers from different exam boards. I am also highly experienced when it comes to students that perhaps don’t enjoy English as a subject, are quiet in themselves, and struggle to concentrate.

I am happy to offer proofreading services (I will NOT under any circumstances write your essay for you). I require one full hour per 1000 words to be proofread, and at least two days' notice.

I can also help with personal statements for University admissions.

I will always bring my I.D. with me and my academic qualification certificates with me to show you. Please bear in mind that my rate does NOT include travel expenses for travelling to sessions within my usual travel radius.

I am easily contactable via email or phone – Please contact me as soon as possible to organise a suitable timeslot (as I am proud to say that I am often fully booked) and I will endeavour to accommodate you.

Loughborough has consistently been voted by the Times Good University Guide as having the best student experience. For this reason, it is a top 5 university in the UK.

Birmingham University, in The Times Good University Guide, is ranked 14th out of 121 universities surveyed.

I am a certified CILIP librarian and I am First Aid trained. I also have a DBS check that I pay to have updated yearly.

Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon!

PLEASE NOTE: Tutorful charges me 20% to use this platform which comes out of the fee I advertise.

Texts that I have studied and have taught in detail so far with their corresponding exam boards. If your text is not included on the list, please enquire and I will endeavour to accommodate you.

19th-century novels and prose for GCSE:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens | AQA | Edexcel | Eduqas | WJEC
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens | AQA | Edexcel | OCR
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley | AQA | Edexcel
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas | WJEC
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle | AQA
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas
Silas Marner by George Eliot | Edexcel | Eduqas | WJEC
War of the Worlds by H.G Wells | OCR | Eduqas

Shakespeare for GCSE/A-LEVEL

Macbeth | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas
Romeo and Juliet | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas
The Tempest | AQA | Edexcel
Merchant of Venice | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas
Much Ado About Nothing | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas | WJEC (not from 2022 onwards)
Julius Caesar | AQA
Twelfth Night | Edexcel
Othello | Eduqas | WJEC (not from 2022 onwards)
Henry V | Eduqas

Modern drama texts for GCSE

An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas | CCEA | WJEC
Blood Brothers by Willy Russell | AQA | Edexcel | WJEC | Eduqas | CCEA
The History Boys by Alan Bennett | AQA | WJEC | Eduqas
DNA by Dennis Kelly | AQA | OCR
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon | AQA | Eduqas | CCEA

Modern prose texts for GCSE

Lord of the Flies by William Golding | AQA | CCEA | Edexcel | Eduqas | WJEC
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee | CCEA | WJEC
Animal Farm by George Orwell | AQA | CCEA | Edexcel OCR
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck | CCEA | WJEC
Anita & Me by Meera Syal | AQA | Edexcel | OCR | Eduqas | WJEC
Woman in Black by Susan Hill | Edexcel | Eduqas
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro | AQA | OCR | WJEC | Eduqas
About a Boy by Nick Hornby | WJEC | CCEA
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou | WJEC
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman | AQA

AQA Power and Conflict Poetry Anthology
AQA Love and Relationships Poetry Anthology

A-Level Texts

Tragedy - William Shakespeare:
Antony and Cleopatra | Edexcel
Hamlet | Edexcel | OCR
King Lear | Edexcel
Othello | Edexcel | AQA
Richard III | OCR

Comedy - William Shakespeare:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream | Edexcel
Measure for Measure | Edexcel | AQA | OCR
The Taming of the Shrew | Edexcel | AQA
Twelfth Night | Edexcel | OCR
The Winter’s Tale | AQA

Other Shakespeare

The Tempest | AQA | Edexcel | OCR
All’s Well That Ends Well
Much Ado About Nothing
Cymbeline
Timon of Athens
Pericles

Other drama: pre-1900:
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe | Edexcel
The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster | Edexcel | OCR

Other drama: pre-1900:
The Rover by Aphra Behn | Edexcel
The Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen | OCR
The Country Wife, William Wycherley
The Revenger's Tragedy, Thomas Middleton
The Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Kyd
Volpone, Ben Jonson
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde | Edexcel

Childhood Pre-1900:
Hard Times, Charles Dickens | Edexcel

Post-1900:
Atonement by Ian McEwan | Edexcel | AQA
The Color Purple by Alice Walker | Edexcel
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald | AQA | OCR
A Room with a View, Virginia Woolf | AQA
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier | AQA
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams | Edexcel | AQA

Post-2000 prose
The First Casualty, Ben Elton | AQA
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey | AQA
Hagseed, Margaret Atwood
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini | Edexcel

Colonisation and its Aftermath Pre-1900:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad | Edexcel
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain | Edexcel

Crime and Detection Pre-1900:
Lady Audley’s Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon | Edexcel
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins | Edexcel

Science and Society Pre-1900:
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley | Edexcel
The War of the Worlds, H.G Wells | Edexcel

Post-1900
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro | Edexcel
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood | Edexcel | AQA | OCR
Nineteen Eighty-four, George Orwell | OCR

The Supernatural Pre-1900 and the Gothic:
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde | Edexcel
Dracula, Bram Stoker | Edexcel | OCR
The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter | OCR

Women and Society Pre-1900:
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë | Edexcel | AQA
Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy | Edexcel
Persuasion, Jane Austen | AQA
Sense and Sensibility, Austen | OCR
Jane Eyre, Bronte | AQA
The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot | AQA

Post-1900:
Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf | Edexcel | OCR
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley | OCR

Poetry choices | Edexcel | OCR | AQA

AQA Anthology of Love Poetry Through the Ages pre-1900
AQA Anthology of Love Poetry Through the Ages post-1900

Chaucer | Edexcel | OCR
Metaphysical poetry | Edexcel

Romantic poets (Donne, Keats, Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, etc) | AQA | OCR
Victorian women (such as Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning etc) | AQA | OCR
Modernist poets (such as T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolf, Henry James, James Joyce etc) | AQA
Wilfred Owen war poetry | AQA
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge AQA/ OCR
Carol Ann Duffy’s Feminine Gospels (post-2000) | AQA | OCR
Owen Sheers’ Skirrid Hill (post-2000) | AQA
Sheamus Heaney | AQA
Ted Hughes | AQA
Alfred Lord Tennyson | OCR
William Blake

Theory (all exam boards GCSE and A-level):
Feminism
Marxism
Psychoanalytic

Tutoring Approach

Every lesson will be tailored to your needs!