Tutor profile - Jess

Jess has over 20 years' teaching experience in top state and independent schools, most recently at Notting Hill and Ealing High School where she has taught English for the past 4 years and led the SEN Department for one year. She has also had extensive experience of marking the 11 + Consortium English paper and of interviewing 11 + candidates. She has taught English to girls and boys of all abilities from Years 7-13 in schools.

Jess has taught English Literature and Language GCSE, as well as A Level English Literature, for many years, always with outstanding results, and has an enviable bank of resources and teaching approaches. Over the past year Jess has tutored several Year 11 students for both Literature and Language, covering a wide variety of set texts and examination boards, including IGCSE.

Primary school tutoring experience has included school entrance (Channing School, Highgate School, Haberdashers School, Latymer Grammar School, St. Paul's Girls' School) as well as general primary tuition in Maths and English.

In terms of her tutoring style, Jess tailors all lessons to the individual's needs and interests, always attempting to build in clear learning goals so that the student can feel that progress is being made. In this way, her students are able to grow in confidence and to enjoy the lessons. Jess uses praise and clear targets to engage her students and is always on hand to liaise with parents about homework, reading material or any areas of weakness which need to be addressed. A baseline assessment will be given at the start of tuition to gauge each student's strengths and weaknesses and to plan a programme of lessons.

As an alumna of St. Paul's Girls' School, Jess has experience of learning in a highly academic environment and what such schools are looking for in potential students. She went on to study English Language and Literature at Manchester University, before going onto teacher training at King's College. She also has a Masters Degree from the Tavistock Centre (University of East London) and a further post-graduate diploma from the Institute of Education in the teaching and assessing of SpLD (Dyslexia).

Jess enjoys cooking, reading, travelling, spending time with her husband, two young daughters and two guinea pigs, playing the piano and singing.

A parent provided the following thoughts on tuition with Jess:

“S is absolutely loving City and we couldn’t be happier! R too is loving Merchant Taylor’s. All down to you. We think of you often and I’m always saying, ‘What would Jess say?’ We’ll never forget you!”