Summary
A potential young student might baulk at being taught by an 'oldie' in his 60s ... but many down those years have found they enjoy my style of gently upbeat support. I bring a range of cross-curricular experience, even some humour to my cases, offering wider context and purpose to any such material.Qualifications
- MA (Mdern Languages: Modern & Mediaeval French) (University of Oxford (New College))
- PostGraduate Certificate in Education (University of Cambridge (Corpus Christi))
Experience
I taught Modern Languages and RE in independent schools for 15+ years before turning freelance with a portfolio of, often, more generalist work ~ which I find enjoyably but manageably stretching. (No lifelong teacher worthy of the name should turn down opportunities to continue their own learning!) This range of teaching and writing experience has included :15+ years with OHS / OOL as a Tutor and course writer/editor (KS3 Maths; IGCSE French)
Private and local-authority 1:1 work with disadvantaged young people including 'looked-after children' and unaccompanied teenage migrants; online seminars (e.g. GCSE History) for the National Association for the Education of Sick Children (since disbanded, but provided synchronous online learning for young people whose medical, psychiatric or other circumstances made conventional school attendance impracticable ~ an evident overlap of interest with OOL)
Teaching GCSE Maths to Young Offenders
Individual and seminar work in Latin towards GCSE with students aged 7 to 75
Home-hosting EFL learners of all ages from overseas (inc. several Chinese), and running / delivering EFL lessons for Ukrainians of all ages as a local community volunteer
Individual instrumental lessons in piano and organ plus Music Theory
Writing and editing revision and practice materials for CGP Publications, including GCSE English Creative Writing to model A* standard (2011)
Marking and moderating in some 12 subjects at GCSE and A-Level in the 'pandemic closure' summer of 2021, for Tutors And Exams ~ with not a single assessment adjusted by other moderators
I hope this spread of activities and accomplishments serves to illustrate the breadth and depth of experience I would bring to your own potential case!
More
During my time as an OOL tutor it's been my privilege to work with a number of young trainee performers (in sports, music and as actors), and since my last longterm classroom role had been at Oxbridge's oldest (fd.1379!) choir-school, I have a particular affinity with young people busy with intensive vocational training programmes alongside their studies.I meanwhile have very direct empathy with anyone that has found modern classrooms too frantic, noisy etc to be the workable environment they are supposed to be, and who thus prefers a calmer and more independent route toward their public-exam goals. Often with OOL cases (and others), it can be the making of a young person ~ at a formative and unrepeatable age ~ to take more direct control of their learning and its management, to do without bells, corridors and playgrounds, and to be able to take quiet pride in reaching their target/s 'despite The System rather than because of it', instead of letting themselves be chuntered on an industrial scale through a process that can and should be so individual.
If these observations sound 'on-wavelength' to you, I hope I may look forward to working with and for you. Most of my work these days seems to be in Maths (in which I scored a top grade at O-Level in 1973) but I enjoy getting to grips with plenty else!
Meanwhile by way of my own wider background: alongside my educational activities I am an active musician in churches and the community, enjoying choral classics, musical-theatre and 'British Light Music'. I have directed a number of parish and community choirs, am Stage Manager at the annual English Music Festival, and since 1994 have been compiling specialist cryptic puzzles for a respected international quarterly magazine for organists.
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Tags
French I Geography Year 7 K3 Geography Year 8 K3 Geography Year 9 K3 German I Mathematics I Maths Year 7 K3 Maths Year 8 K3 Maths Year 9 K3