Simon

Do you want a tutor who has recent experience sitting exams? Or do you want a tutor who also has experience of life?
Since graduating with a BA in Performing Arts (Drama), I've spent over 25 years working in some of London’s biggest ad agencies. I've spent 10 years writing as the Senior Theatre Critic for broadwaybaby.com. I've spent five years running my own marketing consultancy and copywriting business.
And I've spent nearly four years helping GCSE students do better, and feel better, in English and Maths.
As well as giving me the experience of applying school subjects to real life, during my career, I trained in leadership, mentoring, and training. I bring these core skills to my tutoring approach. I look for individual strengths and aim to grow the potential in each student for their exams and beyond. That’s the difference I offer.

Tutoring Experience

In 2020, I started tutoring Year 10 students forced to home school during lockdown. I started online, but as lockdown ended, I also began tutoring in-person. I mainly work with Year 7 and Year 10/11 students as these are both key times for their development.
In 2022, I began volunteering with Action Tutoring. The charity aims to tackle the attainment gap by providing tuition to disadvantaged children. I run weekly online lessons with 1 to 3 children. In my first year, I was the only tutor to maintain 100% pupil attendance. I am proud to have been named their Tutor of the Year, 2023/24.

Tutoring Approach

Children absorb knowledge when they feel engaged. I aim to create an environment that is informal, discursive, and enjoyable.
My lessons draw on the important learning tools of personalisation and repetition. The approach is structured but also flexible. New students do a benchmarking test. This helps prioritise the focus for the first lessons.
The lessons themselves are taken from a programme I have developed; all following a consistent structure to test and teach both general and specific subject area knowledge.
The lessons are purposefully exam-board agnostic, incorporating questions from AQA, Pearson Edexcel and OCR. They aim to help a student develop the core skills in Maths and English that are important not only for exams, but for life.
GCSE Maths covers the pathway topics that help pupils become mathematically fluent and more able to access many other topics in the curriculum.
GCSE English is a fully rounded modular programme that has been created around the DoE's Assessment Objectives.
Both programmes aim to make knowledge intrinsic, not just subjects dealt with and then dismissed. I work with an approach and at a pace that suits the student, giving each lesson a personalised structure.
I'm always happy to have an informal discussion before taking things further, so feel free to get in touch.