Robert

I am a 48 year old experienced history and politics teacher based in the west of England. I am married with two teenage children who share my love for history. I also have a dog and a cat and I like to grow vegetables.

Tutoring Experience

I have taught A-Level history and A-Level politics for over 20 years. I work with the AQA specifications for both history and politics. I teach A-Level history 1D "Stuart Britain" and AQA history 2O "Democracy and NAZIS". I am also an examiner for 2O. In addition I lead on my history department's delivery and marking of our history NEA (coursework) which focuses on Twentieth Century US politics, society and foreign policy. Over the years I have also taught A-Level content on early Tudor history, Twentieth Century Russian history as well as US history. I am head of year 13 with responsibility for supporting my students through the UCAS process. I am something of a history and politics obsessive with 5000 books on these subjects, not confined to areas I teach! For twenty+ years I have loved sharing my love of history and politics with my students, not just instilling love for these subjects but also preparing my students to ensure they secure the grades they deserve to get them into the university of their choice.

Tutoring Approach

My major focus, when teaching it tutoring, is to build or restore a love for history and politics. Often students can be jaded with their subjects by the time they're studying them for A-Level and it's really important that I work to rebuild love for their subjects because this also rebuilds motivation. From that point, I work on developing excellent subject knowledge. The next step is to work on developing sound essay structure and deployment of that precise knowledge and I work closely with students line by line interrogating how they answer essay questions, utilising my knowledge of how examiners mark. Many history and politics students struggle with source/extract analysis and my approach is to practice close textual analysis with tips on how to deploy precise contextual knowledge. I can also offer AQA history NEA tutoring, looking at how to hit the specific objectives on the AQA mark scheme. I also offer tutoring on preparing UCAS personal statements and I can offer mock Oxbridge interviews as these are both features of my pastoral role.