Oliver

Hello!

Since graduating from Cambridge, I have tutored professionally, helping and getting to know hundreds of wonderful students and families. I love my role as a tutor — unlike teachers at school, I can work in a tailored, personal way, cutting out the distracting stuff and going straight for what matters. In my experience, it is also often a breath of fresh air for young people to be talked to in an honest, relaxed way, without being patronised.

I have always had an impeccable academic record (for example: 2 major scholarships to Charterhouse, 11 A*s at GCSE, 4 high A*s at A-Level) and I have a confident understanding of the various syllabuses. I have a robust record of improving students' work, turning many Ds into A*s as well as helping people successfully navigate through scholarship exams and the Oxbridge admissions process.

Something else important which sets me apart from the crowd is the fact that I have always known how to handle exams and get good results. This is a knack which not everyone has, which I can hopefully pass on!

Outside of tutoring, I make music and art (completing a Masters in Popular Music at Goldsmiths in 2019). I also love games, sports and the outdoors, and I have undertaken counselling training.

Please do get in touch; I would be delighted to help.

Tutoring Experience

I have thousands of hours' experience tutoring students at prep school, GCSE, AS, A-Level, Cambridge Pre-U, and IB, in English, French, Spanish, Latin and EFL, as well as many casual and professional adult learners. I have also taught Latin as an after-school activity for primary age children (7-11). I have extensive experience preparing for entrance exams and interviews.

All in all, a very wide range of students/ages/teaching remits. Please have a look through my feedback to see what my previous students on First Tutors have thought.

Tutoring Approach

Even when I was at school myself, I was taking note of how teachers did things, and understanding what worked and what didn’t. By the time I started tutoring I was already very confident, and now I am of course more confident still.

At school it is all too easy to fall behind and never quite get picked back up again. As a result, many students are very confused. I am an expert at stripping things back, and building from the fundamentals upwards, in the clearest way possible. In terms of literature and analysis, through my years at school, Cambridge and teaching I have developed a simple method of understanding what it’s all about, and how to put it into practice. I have lost count of the times a student has said that they learned more in a single lesson with me than they have in their entire time learning the subject at school, or that they never really understood what the point of analysis/studying literature was until I helped them with it.

It is, of course, essential to review past papers and study the specific requirements for a given exam; however, this is not everything, and I believe that there are some more general principles which help across the board. For example, writing technique (essay structure and argument, for example) is an essential tool not limited to a particular section of a particular paper. Another very important element of language study is translation, a skill which is often overlooked but which I believe is one of, if not the best way to improve language competence.

My cancellation policy is as follows: if a student cancels a lesson within 24 hours, 50% of the lesson is due to be paid; if within 8 hours, the full fee is due.