Patrick

I am a philosopher with over 10 years experience as a tutor and teacher. Teaching is not only a passion of mine; it is my mode of existence. I try to provoke intellectual curiosity wherever I go.

Tutoring Experience

I have taught students in schools and at universities from Year 7 all the way up to undergraduate level. I have also been a tutor in English Literature and Philosophy for the last 10 years. I am currently working as a subject-specialist in an academy in a depived area of South London. I teach top-set students in groups of 6-10 in a seminar-style fashion. Last year, out of a cohort of 15 students, most achieved grades 7-9 and 4 achieved grade 9. I was working with them for just four months. Compared to the mock exams they took at the time of my arrival, in their final exams all my students improved by at least one grade boundary—most by two grade boundaries. As part of this work, I helped GCSE pupils get into some of the top sixth-forms in the local area, including Wallington Girls Grammar School and Whitgift School for Boys.

I was a student at four top universities in the UK--the University of Oxford, the University of Liverpool, University College London and King’s College London--and so I know the system very well. I understand what it takes to succeed at the highest level—through my own experience and also through the experience of those I have helped raise to the top. I would be delighted to carry on the good work with you or your children.

Tutoring Approach

My aim is always to educate and cheer at once. As Horace said of poetry, teaching, too, should be dulci and utile. My ambition is to speak about the masterpieces of our language like someone who is fascinated by them, who knows them inside-out, who can walk around them as he can walk around his own house. They have developed my eloquence, my thinking and my sensitivity. I want to share this inheritance with my students. Then they, too, will analyse a poem, not only because they want to get 9s or As in their exams, but because they want to know what the poem is doing to their souls. In the end, as my record demonstrates, this also helps them get 9s and As in their exams. They do this much more easily, in fact, than those who are merely taught for the exams. Passion is deeper – and quicker – than swotting.