Jess

Experience

My teaching in school experience includes working in both specialist schools and main stream schools across London, such as Emerson House and Eaton Square School.

I have been teaching privately for over ten years. I divide this side of my work between specialist teaching and teaching those that are struggling in certain areas of their education, and working with those who are performing well but need some extra help to reach the slightly higher grade. All of this work requires looking at mindset and how the student is approaching the task in hand.

I work as a mentor with students in varying different capacities. This includes helping students to achieve their goals, looking at what's holding them back, encouraging students to problem solve, think outside of the box and to develop a solution based curious mindset for whatever opportunities come their way.

I became TEFL qualified in 2011 and have worked with a wide range of EAL students. This ranges from littles ones as young as 3 and 4 and reaches up to adults. I have volunteered for RefuAid for several years and also worked with several teenagers who have transferred to the UK from many different countries around the world. I have my own experiences of learning languages and can relate to the difficulties that students face.

Biography

I have an OCR Level 5 qualification from Fairley House in Teaching Students with Specific Learning Difficulties and a Level 7 qualification in Maths difficulties at Edge Hill University. The Level 7 course specialised in Dyscalculia and looked at Maths anxiety, poor working memory and visual perception difficulties. Both qualifications included working with students with ADHD and difficulty concentrating.

Over the last few years I have been working in the field of mindset and mindfulness, and am currently in the process of bringing the two together to create my own course which I plan to offer as an accredited qualification. I am fascinated by the effect of a positive and curious mindset on students, not just in education but throughout their daily lives. I enjoy researching this topic and have been working solely with students in this area in more of a mentor role, alongside bringing it into my teaching generally.

Alongside my specialist teaching and work on mindset, I like to help students with exam preparation, interview preparation and school entrance in general. This includes UKISET and CAT tests. I am fully up to date with the 11+ and 13+ entrance exams and have helped many students into the top day and boarding schools across the UK, coming from both from the UK and overseas. I also work a lot with GCSE students, both with those looking to retake and those aiming at scoring 8s or 9s.

I cofounded and set up the Grow Fellowship in 2020, with a colleague. My role is the Director of Education and Director of Balance.

Personal Approach

Students learn best, regardless of age, when they are thoroughly engaged in the lesson and the clear advantage of one to one lessons is that they can be tailored completely towards the individual. I believe identifying the student’s learning style is essential, as is using the student’s interests and hobbies to create personalised resources. I incorporate mindset and mindfulness into all of my work and my aim is, regardless of the goal of the job, to help students develop a curious and positive mindset and therefore I incorporate growth mindset teaching into all of my work.

I am enthusiastic and passionate about teaching and I aim to make my lessons as enjoyable and interesting as possible. My lessons are engaging and include a variety of activities and resources; students frequently use textbooks at school and therefore I try to break away from these and concentrate on finding other ways to teach. I like to help to build confidence and enjoy using rewards and praise throughout my lessons.

What I do when I am not tutoring

In my free time I love to write, play tennis, climb, trampoline, cook, walk my dog, swim and take photos. I have an interest in film and music and enjoy catching up with what’s on at the Barbican, or any film festivals that may be happening.

I enjoy taking part in sporting challenges, such as open water swims and I completed the London Marathon in 2017.

Testimonials

"Very happy indeed with Jess's lessons and teaching". Eton pre-test applicant from Singapore

We would not be where we are today without you…. YOU are brilliant and it was very much because of your excellent, thoughtful, intuitive teaching, patience and insight that my son has made such transformational progress.

"We are so pleased - our son has done very well to get two offers at 10+. We are extremely, and genuinely, grateful to Jess for everything she has done." Mother of 10+ student.

"My wife and I have been so amazed and impressed by Jess. She is an amazing tutor and has been a wonderful contributor to our son’s development.

'Our son is loving his sessions with Jess. Jess is a superstar and always great with immediate feedback following the lessons. We are very happy and believe he is in good hands and we are confident Jess will assist him to overcome his development areas.' (Father of Year 3 student)

"We love Jess. She is so very helpful and pleasant to work with." (Mother of Year 7 Maths student)

Jess has been helping Alexandre for a while now and we are very pleased with the result. She has always been punctual for the sessions and flexible when we needed to rearrange. Alexandre likes her and she understands and handles our son very well, especially when it comes to his frustration of not being accurate all the time. She gives him very good guidance and clear tasks to help him get organised and improve his time management skills. We have seen an improvement in performance in his homework and school tests, especially in English. All in all, a great start. (Mother of 9+ Maths and English student)

We have known Jess at Keystones for over 7 years now. Both our children have flourished and tackled subjects they found intimidating with ease with Jess’s help. Her friendly approach and calm demeanour through all stressful exams has helped not only the children but us parents too. When a topic is tricky for the child Jess has been able to find alternate methods specific to the child and it has made learning easy and fun. Rarely do the children refuse a lesson and that’s a big win! Highly recommend.

''Jess's communication skills and ability to apply different teaching technics to suit Dunia’s academic abilities in the different subjects, has not only reflected on exam results but also on Dunia’s confidence and aptitude towards schoolwork.'' (Dunia's mother)

“Jess has helped Chloe remarkably with her Maths. She has gone from one of the bottom sets in the year and hating the subject to being, as her Maths teacher describes her recently, “a girl confident in the subject and doing incredibly well”. She has moved up a set and we are really happy with this result.”

(Chloe's mother)