Information About Sean - Deal tutor -

(2 reviews)

Personal Description:

My first degree was from the University of York, and I have a PhD from Middlesex University. I have 25 years of teaching experience, in schools and universities, in Britain and abroad. I am the author of more than 30 books. These include a British Government report on truancy, and an overview of the British home education sector.

I have full enhanced DBS clearance (CRB check). This is registered with the British Government for continuous updates. I also have a recognised qualification in safeguarding. I always show a copy of the certificates at a first meeting.

My preference is to accept clients within a reasonable distance of where I live. However, for Latin and Classics and for other subjects where tutors are in short supply, I am willing to travel to Central London. Bearing in mind the travel, other rates will have to apply. But I am available.

I am married, with one daughter.

Tutoring Experience:

London Metropolitan University (1992-2008). Currently Fellow in Classics at All Saints College, and Director of the School of Ancient Studies.

Other Teaching: Buckingham University, Westminster University, City University, Middlesex University, Goldsmith’s College (London), University of North London, Greenwich University (London), Schiller International University (London), Westminster Tutors, Collingham Sixth Form College (London), Comenius University (Slovakia), Charles University (Prague), Utah Valley State College

Subjects Taught: History, Latin, Greek, English, Economics, Law. Levels: GCSE/A Level, Undergraduates, Graduates

Tutoring Approach:

I have twenty five years of experience, in various British schools and universities, teaching these subjects: History, Latin, Greek, English, Law, Economics, Philosophy, and Religious Studies, among others.

Though I will take students for other subjects, I have tended to specialise, during the past few years, in Latin, Greek and Classics. This appears to be my most productive niche. I will travel within reason to students, my preference is either for students to come to me, or to meet on-line.

This being said, here is my general approach to teaching any subject:

Most of my students have done badly in previous exams, or are expected to do badly in coming exams, not because they lack knowledge of their subject. They are at school, or have been at school. They usually know the subject well enough to pass. Their problem is that they have limited understanding of how to deal with exam questions. These usually require a complete answer in not more than seven hundred words. It needs a good understanding of the writing process to manage this. A student needs to know how to structure an answer, and how to select the appropriate points and facts – and generally how to make the examiner believe that a seven hundred word answer is only the top of a student’s iceberg of knowledge.

From my own experience, I know that examination practice is hard to teach in schools alongside the subject. There is a syllabus to cover, and individual tuition to a dozen or more students is impossible to fit into a crowded schedule.

What I offer, therefore, is examination practice. I can make no promise of success, but my approach is to arrange all teaching around the exam. We study past papers. We look for common themes. We look at strategies for dealing with questions in general and in particular. Given enough time, I usually start by dictating sample answers, and then pick these apart with the student, to see how they might get a high mark. Later, the student writes the answers, and we pick those apart, seeing how they could be improved. Present me with a rush job, and the process has to be shortened. Even so, the approach is similar.

Of course, I need to know the subject, and some teaching is an integral part of the process. But my speciality as a private tutor is to supplement what is taught at school, and to help a student to perform as well as possible in the exam.

Again, no promises. But my approach has been known to take a student from a fail or borderline pass to grades good enough for university entrance, or grades good enough for an upper-class honours degree.

I do my best teaching face-to-face, either in my home or in the student’s. But I have a long experience of on-line tuition. I understand the technology, and I have a first class webcam and fast broadband.