Dr Howard A. Patten

Expert Tutor | Mentor | Academic Coach

I am a full-time professional private tutor and coach, tutoring since 2015 and offering personalised tuition designed to strengthen subject knowledge, academic skills and confidence.

I offer History tuition at GCSE, A Level and degree level; Politics at A Level and degree level; International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies at degree level; and Modern Israeli Hebrew online at all levels. I also provide dissertation and essay consultation, proofreading, examination preparation and academic coaching.

A former Teaching Fellow at King’s College London, I hold degrees from the universities of London, Jerusalem and Cambridge. At King’s, I taught MA courses on the Arab–Israeli Conflict, US and British Foreign Policy, War and Peace in the Middle East, and Inter-Faith Relations.

I am the author of Israel and the Cold War: Diplomacy, Strategy and the Policy of the Periphery at the United Nations (I.B. Tauris, 2013), have reviewed for the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and have written for academic journals and newspapers.

My academic distinctions include the first Mikardo Scholarship awarded by the British Foreign Office, a Golda Meir Fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Donner Prize in Atlantic Studies at Cambridge for an essay on the role of the United States in the Falklands War.

A fluent Hebrew speaker, I also served as Peer Tutor in Hebrew at University College London, where I received the departmental prize for excellence in the Hebrew language.

Tutoring Experience

My experience combines private tuition and coaching since 2015 with university teaching at postgraduate level. This enables me to make complex ideas accessible, adapt my teaching to different levels and help students develop the knowledge, analytical skills and confidence needed to progress.

Alongside tuition throughout the academic year, I offer intensive support during school and university holidays. These sessions are particularly useful for examination preparation, consolidating knowledge, developing academic skills or helping students regain confidence and momentum.

Tutoring Approach

My sessions are interactive, confidence-building and results-driven, combining academic rigour with personalised coaching. I help students think critically, construct persuasive arguments, write clearly and perform effectively under examination pressure.

I work with each student to identify their priorities and tailor tuition accordingly, whether they need to strengthen subject knowledge, improve essay structure and analytical skills, prepare for examinations or regain confidence.

To help students get started, I offer a stand-alone introductory session at a 50% discount.

Tuition packages include personal goal planning, relevant subject resources and follow-up support for questions arising from our sessions.

My students have gained places at institutions including Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL, King’s College London, Birmingham, York, Sheffield, Nottingham, Sussex and Oundle School.

For parents’ peace of mind, I hold an enhanced DBS check and subscribe to the annual update service.