Abigail

My name is Abbey Young and I am 22 years old. I grew up in Buckley, North Wales and attended Elfed High School and Mold Alun. I have always had a passion for academics and have a particular interest in Humanities and creative subjects. Aside from academics, I have a keen interest in health and fitness. Throughout school, I danced competitively as well as taking part in numerous athletics competitions. This is still a very important part of my life and my main hobbies are going to the gym, cycling, and running - I completed my first marathon this year! I have just moved back to North Wales after finishing University and teacher training. This year, I am looking forward to spending more time with my family after living so far away for 4 years as well as doing some travelling.

Tutoring Experience

I am a qualified Secondary English teacher. I have experience teaching WJEC and OCR A-Level English Literature WJEC and AQA GCSE English Literature and Language, as well as a range of topics in KS3. Some of my favourites during my training year have been Somali Poetry, Creative Approaches to Shakespeare, Creative Writing and the Gothic.
Additionally, throughout my time at University, I was a tutor and learning coach for Coachbright UK. This is what sparked my interest in teaching as it allowed me to pass on my passion for English as well as giving children advice on wider issues outside of the classroom. For example, careers, strengths, weaknesses, pastoral issues.

Tutoring Approach

I was very lucky to train at a University that put creativity and innovation at the centre of the pedagogical approaches we were taught. Throughout my training year, I felt so inspired by my tutors and their methods of teaching. English, my main subject, is one of the most important qualifications a child pupil gets while at school so it is incredibly important that they have a grasp of punctuation, grammar and the technical aspects of both Literature and Language. This is especially important as, at GCSE, it is worth as many marks as the content of their writing and ideas. However, English is also a subject rich in transferrable skills that allows students to develop creativity, imagination, analysis and critical thinking. Therefore, when I teach English, I aim to strike a balance between these two things. It is vital to choose texts that engage and appeal to students while building activities to target and improve written and technical accuracy. I hope that, from this, students will have a genuine love of English Literature while also becoming competent and creative writers.