Aisling

I am currently a Secondary School Latin, Classical Civilisation and Classical Greek Teacher after completing my PGCE and receiving my QTS in June 2023. I am extremely passionate about literature, history and film and can always recommend good books, films or podcasts to supplement your revision and get you more excited about the subject!

Tutoring Experience

I currently work as a Classics teacher in a London secondary school; planning and teaching pupils from Year 7 up to 6th Form. I have taught both the OCR and Eduqas Latin GCSE Specification and OCR for Classical Civilisation and Latin A Level. Before becoming a teacher, I worked as a Student Support Worker for GCSE English, History, Spanish, Latin and Maths pupils, which involved tutoring students to improve their analytical skills, revision methods and exam techniques, often working one-on-one. I have a Government Tutoring qualification and I ran small group sessions at school particularly helping with AQA GCSE Language and Literature, studying An Inspector Calls, Macbeth, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, A Christmas Carol and the Power and Conflict Anthology Poetry. I also ran lunchtime clubs teaching beginner to intermediate Latin, and a club where pupils work towards achieving the Intermediate Certificate in Classical Greek in Year 10, and they can go on to complete the full GCSE in Year 11, if they so wish. Whilst at University I was part of the Isca Latina programme, where I volunteered to teach Latin to local State School students, who all ended up achieving Grades 7-9 in their Level 1 qualifications. Since the pandemic I have tutored severalpupils in OCR Latin GCSE, OCR Classical Civilisation A Level, AQA English Language and Literature, and AQA History, and all my tutees have gone up at least one grade from what they were predicted. I've also worked as a Learning Support Assistant for kids with autism, ADHD and dyspraxia, and understand that the reason kids are struggling is rarely due to lack of intelligence, but often because the way they are being taught just isn't suited to them.

Tutoring Approach

I believe every child is different and has a particular way of learning that works best for them, whether that's visual aids, debating or memorising quotes to a theme tune, and the key to good grades is discovering which method works best for you. As a teacher I have readily prepared lessons on a range of Latin grammar topics. Depending on the frequency of our sessions, I have run them as supplementary school lessons going through the content and making notes, as well as sessions focusing on practicing past exam questions.
I'm a firm advocate for positive reinforcement, and listening to the student's views on exactly what they're struggling with and how best to help them. It's easy to get lost at the back of a big class and so having someone personally investing in you can make all the difference.
I teach close textual analysis for Latin, English, Class Civ and History syllabuses, as high marks come not just from knowing the source material inside out, but being able to analyse the significance of that source material and using it to answer the question.
For Latin I have made extensive revision packs, with simple breakdowns of each grammatical concept, and we'll do lots of translation practice to help absorb all the vocab.