Oxford History graduate and Cambridge MPhil student offering History, English tuition and Oxbridge admissions support.

During my time at Oxford, the work I'm proudest of outside my own academics is the three years I spent as an Admissions and Outreach Ambassador, employed directly by the University. I ran workshops in schools across Bradford, Birmingham and Oxford for more than three hundred students, worked as a History Ambassador on residentials, and sat on admissions panels answering questions from applicants, parents and teachers. What struck me again and again was how many bright students had quietly decided somewhere along the way that a place like Oxford wasn't meant for people like them, when very often the academic ability was already there and what was missing was simply permission to believe it. Since 2023 I've tutored privately at 11+, GCSE and A Level in History and English, as well as supporting Oxbridge applicants with personal statements, written work and mock interviews. Before that I mentored girls aged nine to twelve through a coding enrichment programme. My first aim with any student is to centralise their own thinking, because so many of the students I meet have learned to hunt for the answer they imagine I want rather than a more creative and personal one. I begin, therefore, by listening: an early piece of writing or a past paper tells me far more about how a student builds an argument than their grades could, and from there I plan properly against the specification or the admissions requirement, changing that plan whenever a student tells me, directly or otherwise, that it isn't working. My lessons are structured but I treat them like conversations, in a similar style to the Oxbridge tutorial system. In essay subjects I'll push back on what a student says and ask them to defend it and I explain from the outset that this is the whole point rather than a sign they've got something wrong. For Oxbridge preparation I never rehearse answers, since memorised responses collapse the moment an interviewer asks something unexpected. I work instead on the habits that hold up, for example, reading widely, noticing what a source is trying to do, and being able to work through their thinking out loud. Students find enormous relief in discovering that not knowing is allowed, and I set and mark work thoroughly between sessions so that they can see for themselves how far they've come, keeping parents updated fortnightly.