Elisa

CURRENTLY FULLY BOOKED FOR 1-ON-1 TUITION
Please only get in touch if you would like to be added to my School Admissions waiting list for September 2024.

♦︎ PROFESSIONAL TUTOR - 10 Years of Experience - University of Oxford - Double First in English ♦︎
I am a fun, sensitive, and dedicated professional tutor with more than a decade of experience. I love sharing my knowledge and enthusiasm for learning and seeing my students progress and achieve the results they were hoping for. Having started tutoring whilst I was still at school, I have since worked with students of all abilities on a wide range of curriculums, honing their skills and nurturing not only their knowledge but also their interest and love for the subject. I take great pride in seeing my students progress and become lifelong, happy learners who are not afraid of approaching challenges with confidence and enthusiasm.

♦︎ Tutoring Achievements ♦︎
- 10 years of teaching experience
- 2000+ hours taught
- 85% of Oxbridge applicants I worked with received an offer from their chosen college
- 97% of my students have received an offer from their top choice of school
- 95% of the university dissertations/ coursework assignments I helped with received a First/ Distinction
- Many of my students received both offers and scholarships from top schools like Eton, Westminster, Winchester, Sevenoaks, North London Collegiate School, King's College, Francis Holland, Whitgift, Highgate, and Channing, among many others.

♦︎ Qualifications and Prizes ♦︎

University of Oxford
- Double First (BA Hons) in English Language and Literature (2017)
- Distinction in Prelims
- Casberd Scholarship for Outstanding Results

Wellington College
- 45/45 points in the IB (top 0.1% of students in the world)
- Full Bursary & Music Scholarship to attend the school
- Academic Prizes: Gavin Ewart Poetry Prize, Verrall English Prize, the Lady Emma Talbot Special Prize
- Music Prizes: the Music Essay Prize, the Instrumental Prize

Tutoring Experience

My wealth of experience has taught me that the best results come from taking the time to truly understand each student - their personality, interests, goals, and things that make them happy. No two students are the same and, therefore, no two lessons are the same. I design a flexible, bespoke learning programme for each student and plan each session to efficiently target specific gaps in their knowledge or areas of improvement whilst taking into consideration their preferred learning style, interests and personality, as well as balancing their learning pace with the required deadlines. My goal is to help students find joy in learning and make exams and deadlines a challenge they can approach with enthusiasm rather than dread.

♦︎ Testimonials ♦︎

“Elisa didn't work with our son Oscar for a long period, however, she achieved great results in a short space of time. She built a great rapport with him during the very first session and understood immediately why we were tutoring. Our goals were to increase confidence and encourage Oscar to challenge himself, rather than coasting through. Elisa used Oscar's love of reading to inspire him and helped him to organise his thoughts when transferring them on to paper. She also suggested books that he might like to read and made the vocab tasks a lot of fun. Oscar always looked forward to his tutoring sessions, a true indication of Elisa's skills and enthusiasm! I would thoroughly recommend Elisa and can't thank her enough!”

"Elisa worked with my daughter, aged 10, for around four months in preparation for her 11+ exams for English. My daughter said she was exceptionally helpful, and helped her focus on the type of questions she would face in her English exams and methods for improving her writing. My daughter found her patient, considerate and helpful in her approach. What is more, she made the sessions interesting enough that my daughter was able to concentrate and focus for 90 minutes, and come out happy and smiling at the end of each session!"

"Elisa was amazing! She was super prompt and helpful with her feedback on my coursework assignment and even sent me some of her own essays for inspiration. Highly recommend!"

Tutoring Approach

My teaching style balances a thorough knowledge of results-driven exam techniques and an emphasis on fun which encourages confidence, curiosity and enthusiasm - the pillars of academic success. In short, I aspire to make work feel like fun whilst fulfilling all the requirements of the curriculum and making sure that all my students reach their full potential in an encouraging, nurturing environment.

♦︎ Examples of Tuition Assignments ♦︎

Hannah, 19
For a few months prior to her IB exams, I helped Hannah with her preparation for HL English and SL French and Biology. As well as providing her with my own materials which synthesised the syllabus into bite-sized chunks of information, I also suggested mnemonic techniques for memorising large quantities of information, as well as notes-making tips. Specifically for English, I reviewed her coursework and helped her refine her already excellent ideas by suggesting additional reading and asking her challenging questions which helped her clarify the different facets of her argument. I also helped her with her Oxford application, reviewing her personal statement, refining her interview technique and suggesting further reading. She achieved the stellar score of 45 points in the IB and is currently reading English Language and Literature at Lincoln College, Oxford.

India, 18
I worked with India intensively for four days in the run-up to her IB HL English exams, doing 6-hour long revision sessions. Her goal was to improve her results from a 4 (the result of her latest mock) to a 6. Over the course of these few days we focused on improving exam technique, teaching her simple ways of approaching the unseen text and structuring her commentary so that she could feel confident even when faced with an unfamiliar passage. For Paper 2, we picked the texts she would use carefully and strategically, annotated them, and made detailed plans for how she would answer a wide range of past paper questions. The end goal was to provide her with a precise, structured foundation of knowledge and techniques which would help her feel confident and familiar with any type of question or text she might encounter. This last-minute effort proved fruitful, as she achieved a high 6 and made the offer for her top choice of university.

Milo, 10
Over the course of a few weeks, I worked with Milo towards his 11+ entrance exams. Although very passionate about Maths, English wasn’t Milo’s favourite subject. Responding to Milo’s particular frustration with the inexact nature and seemingly unmanageable nature of the long answer part of the comprehension paper, we worked out a way to make English more like Maths by distilling it down to formulas. From dividing the number of marks to the number of points to be made, and following a repeatable structure of ‘Point Evidence Explanation’, to coming up together with creative writing tasks which contained a specific number of literary techniques, this method captured Milo’s interest by appealing to something he already felt confident in, thus helping him organise his thoughts on paper and greatly improve the quality of his answers. He received an offer from Highgate, his top choice, as well as three other schools.