James

A double Oxford graduate, I am an experienced educator with a lifelong enthusiasm for languages and literature. I have worked as a private tutor for over five years, teach at the country’s foremost Latin summer school, and, most recently, spent a year in Peru teaching English. I tutor primarily because I find deep intellectual and humane value in teaching students one-to-one and helping them achieve their aims. My teaching style is reassuring but demanding, and I am always keen for students to recognise their own progress between tutorials. Students that work with me feel highly organised, constantly supported, and very much part of a team working toward a common goal. The joy of tutoring, for me, is having the time and space to find the exact approach that works for each students to meet their objectives. Outside of teaching and studying literature, I enjoy playing sport (Eton Fives, triathlon, and rugby), hiking (the best weeks of my life have been spent walking through Spain!), and going to the theatre.

I have over five years' experience tutoring students aged 11–18 in Latin, Classics, English Language, and English Literature, during which I have enjoyed encouraging students to see connections between their subjects, which was central to my own enjoyment of school. I have experience teaching both OCR and Eduqas Latin, and all exam boards for English GCSE and A Level qualifications. I have worked with British students as well as tutees from overseas (including China, Singapore, and Spain), and at all levels from pre-GCSE to university applications. Many of my students have had presented neurodivergences, so I have experience catering for dyslexic, ADHD-diagnosed, and low executive function. My specialisms would be in Latin, Oxbridge prep & essay competitions, and the EPQ.

I also have a range of experience teaching Classics in both paid and voluntary contexts, to learners from KS2 to KS5. Most recently, I worked as a tutor at the 2024 JACT Latin Summer School (‘Latin Camp’), designing and delivering a bespoke two-week reading course of Seneca and Virgil for a group of ~15 post-GCSE students (having previously worked as the Director’s Assistant, 2022–23). As a volunteer, I have worked with The Iris Project in Oxford, teaching at a 3-day summer school to KS2 children on Ancient Greece in 2021, and The Latin Programme in London, acting as a TA in 2019 and 2020. The most rewarding 1-1 teaching I have undertaken was with Zero Gravity, a charitable scheme designed to tackle unequal access to top universities, through which I mentored a successful Classics applicant to Worcester College, Oxford.

Besides teaching curricular languages and literature in the UK, I am also a qualified and experienced teacher of English as a foreign language. In 2024, I achieved the CELTA at Pass A (awarded to <5% of candidates), and in 2025 I spent a year using that training to teach English to teenagers and adults at all levels in two schools in Peru, as well as online. This made effective use of my fluency in Spanish. I had the opportunity to teach not just General English but also Business English, Academic English, and Exam Prep.