Richard

I am a fully qualified teacher of English and I have been teaching full time at secondary schools in Nottingham, Birmingham and Liverpool since 2005. I have a degree in English Literature from Liverpool John Moores University and a PGCE from the University of Nottingham. I have a wealth of experience of teaching English at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. In addition to my responsibilities as a teacher of English, I am currently the Key Stage 4 Coordinator and Second in Department at my current school and I have extensive knowledge of the AQA English GCSEs. I have held a number of other roles within school such as whole-school Literacy Coordinator and Educational Research Advocate.

Students in my classes consistently achieve good grades and my teaching and my classroom-management strategies have been recognised as excellent by senior colleagues in school and by OFSTED.

Tutoring Experience

At Key Stage 3, I have taught a range of prose, poetry and drama texts to students between the ages of 11-14. I also have excellent experience of teaching literacy to ensure students have a good command of spelling, punctuation and grammar. I also encourage students at Key Stage 3 to read as widely as possible and I know to how to teach students a range of different reading strategies.

At Key Stage 4, I have extensive experience of teaching the English Language and English Literature GCSE. For English Language, I can teach a range of reading strategies that will allow students to make sense of the fiction and non-fiction texts and I can teach students how to answer the questions in the way that the exam board expects. I am also able to provide tips and instructions that will help students to improve their descriptive and persuasive writing.

For GCSE English Literature, I am able to teach the Shakespeare, drama and prose texts that will appear on the exam. I am also able to teach the poetry collections and have lots of experience in helping students to understand and analyse unseen poems.

I also have experience of teaching the Functional Skills qualification at Key Stage 4.

My current school uses the AQA exam board for GCSE but I am familiar with the specifications of other exam boards and am able to teach the requirements of these other English GCSEs.

At Key Stage 5, I have lots of relevant experience of teaching the Love Through the Ages and Tragedy syllabuses and I have extensive knowledge of the Independent Critical Study coursework.

Tutoring Approach

I am committed to delivering excellent standards in all areas of my work and I have good relationships with the students, colleagues and parents. I have high expectations of the students in my classes and I work hard to ensure that they make excellent progress and achieve their potential. I have a through a thorough and up-to-date knowledge of the subject of English and an excellent understanding of how to use and adapt a range of teaching and learning strategies to maximise students' abilities. I have developed relevant and effective teaching resources which provide opportunities for all learners to fully engage with different topics in a variety of ways. I am aware of the importance of personalising these resources so that students of different learning styles are able to achieve their potential. My planning of individual lessons and sequences of lessons is flexible and creative and well-matched to learning objectives and the needs of individual learners.