Charles

I have been fortunate enough to work a wide variety of jobs in my life which have provided me with a broad breadth of experiences and skills. I am foremost an actor and teacher based in Canterbury, England, and have been teaching and tutoring secondary school-age students for the last few years. I offer teaching for Acting as well as English - focusing particularly on KS3 and GCSE AQA and Edexcel iGCSE. I work closely with the student's learning needs to create the best possible educational environment.

Tutoring Experience

After completing training for my teaching qualification (PGCE) I have worked as an English/drama teacher at The King’s School Canterbury, Dover Christ Church Academy, and The Folkestone School for Girls. In the latter position, I had responsibilities as a form tutor with pastoral and extracurricular responsibilities where I was involved in assistant directing several school plays and participated in activities such as school trips. I therefore have a wide range of experience teaching in different secondary and primary settings teaching all subjects from KS2 language and literature to A-Level. I also have a BA(Hons) in English from The University of Nottingham and a Masters in Acting from ArtsEd.

Pre-Covid, I trained and worked as an actor before teaching for the last three years to broaden my skill set and try and give back some of the academia I have been fortunate enough to receive in my life. While this is my first-time tutoring, I have worked at The King’s School Canterbury in their drama department as a TA, LAMDA coach and assistant director. This experience inspired me to pursue teacher training and I was placed at Dover Christ Church Academy and had the chance to first test my classroom management skills. My second placement was The Folkestone School for Girls, where I had to have command of a wide range of subject knowledge across the years 7 - 12 I taught. I stayed on at FSG last year and continued to broaden my teaching skillset and deepen my subject knowledge, particularly as mocks and GCSE/A-Level exam preparation started.

I have therefore had experience teaching in different schooling types from private, comprehensive, and grammar, which has given me a breath of teaching experiences that have helped to teach a wide range of students from different backgrounds and ability levels or complex SEN needs. I have taught from Key Stage 3 – 5 so I am also very familiar with the GCSE and A-Level curriculums, most recently gaining experience in teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) this summer. As such, I am used to having to acquaint myself quickly with new curricula, texts and topics, and exam boards – a useful skill when familiarising myself with the syllabus for new students.#/k#

Tutoring Approach

My approach invites students to consider a holistic approach to the subject and encourages epistemic insight into why English content and skills are useful or relevant to real-world settings.

I centre my approach around open discussions and a fun and sociable classroom atmosphere, always with the aim of inspiring in the students a fundamental curiosity about the world – which I believe is the backbone of any academic mind (and rounded or interesting individuals). The traits of a naturally academically curious person who can develop into an autotelic learner are sadly more and more lost in our increasingly distracted world. I am also a strong believer in the importance of cultivating in students a sense of the power of their own imagination and using criticality to question the world around them.

Overall, my approach focuses on the individual student and working around what makes them tick. Not every student will like every subject, but there are ways to reach every student and make any subject enjoyable to them once that students feel comfortable communicating how they like to learn and know that they are listened to not simply spoken at. It is through this forming of dialogue that I have found students often feel the comfort and security to make mistakes and explore their interests further.