Keren C - Tutors - Keystone Tutors

• Primary English
• 7+ English
• 8+ English
• 11+ English and Maths: ISEB and public school exams, including pre-tests.
• 13+ English, Latin and Ancient Greek: ISEB and public school entrance exams
• GCSE/IGCSE Latin and Ancient Greek (All exam boards)
• 16+ Latin: public school entrance exams
• A-level Latin (All exam boards)

I am an Oxford-educated tutor and a qualified teacher, with five years of experience teaching in independent schools, as well as several years experience of private tutoring. After completing my Classics degree, I took a teaching post at Brentwood School, where I taught Latin, Ancient Greek and Classical Civilisation throughout the 11-18 age range, as well as teaching English as a Foreign Language. I was heavily involved in the school’s Gifted and Talented programme, ensuring that the school’s most able students were catered for both inside and outside the classroom; we devised a comprehensive and very successful system of challenges and rewards based on each child’s interests. I was part of the Oxbridge entry team, conducting mock interviews and providing advice and support to applicants, and I ran Junior Art Club, Junior Classics Club and yoga sessions for Year 8 girls. I also completed my GTP, an on-the-job teaching qualification, granting me Qualified Teacher Status. Having spent three years at Brentwood, I moved to Forest School, where, again, I taught Latin, Greek and Classical Civilisation to pupils aged between 11 and 18, with numerous GCSE and A-level classes. Here I was involved in an initiative to raise the aspirations of very bright but underprivileged girls from the London Borough of Newham, who would be invited to the school for inspiring academic sessions and taken on trips on Saturdays. I ran the Linguistics component of this initiative. I also took part in Oxbridge entry activities, conducted several targeted exam revision sessions and ran Junior Drama Club. I have also hosted learning sessions for children at the British Museum, and have taught Ancient Greek at the JACT Summer School at Bryanston on three occasions, one year co-directing the Greek tragedy Bacchae in the original language.

Over the course of my tutoring career, I have taken on a wide range of roles. Many have been focussed on upcoming entrance exams: I have, for example, prepared students for entry to St. Paul’s (Boys and Girls), Eton, Winchester, Rugby and City of London School for Girls to name just a few. I have also helped prepare students for GCSE and A-level exams in Latin, English and History. Other roles have been broader. I took over the education of a 7/8 year old girl whose parents had taken her out of school to travel for two six week periods in consecutive years, liaising with her teachers back in London, and ensuring she would be up to speed with her class on her return. I lived in Moscow for three months teaching English as a Foreign Language to students aged between 8 and 14, as well as preparing some of them in all subjects required for entry into top UK schools. I also taught English as a Foreign Language to pupils aged between 3 and 15 in Paris for one year in a small school of English.
In terms of pre-tests, I recommend building up a thorough knowledge of the 11+ Maths and English syllabus and focussing as much as possible on comprehension, grammar and cloze procedure and mental arithmetic and word problems. I use a variety of activities to target the time pressured nature of the tests and problem solving.

I grew up in Bristol and attended Bristol Grammar School between the ages of 11-18, taking A-levels in Latin, English, History and Art. I then studied for a BA degree in Classics with Sanskrit at the University of Oxford. I was awarded the Boden Scholarship for Sanskrit, which enabled me to travel to India and study Sanskrit for six weeks. Straight after finishing my degree, I started teaching Classics at Brentwood School, Essex, where I remained for three years and completed a GTP, gaining Qualified Teacher Status. Towards the end of this time, I did my first tutoring for Keystone (then Russell Group Tutors), and continued to tutor privately over the next few years, taking numerous jobs in London, as well as residential placements in Mexico and Russia. I returned to full-time school teaching at Forest School, London, where I taught Classics for two years, whilst continuing to tutor throughout. I the decided to dedicate more time to tutoring, and to take it on in a full-time, professional capacity. I have now been a professional tutor for Keystone for ten years.

My approach varies hugely depending on the child I am tutoring. However I think something which unifies it across the range of ages and abilities is that I always try to break down what seem like huge, daunting subjects or assignments into smaller, manageable, non-scary, fun tasks. I work closely with each child to determine the ways in which they learn best, their interests, strengths and weaknesses, and feed this back into my tutoring methods, creating a tailor-made learning experience. I hold a post-graduate diploma in the Psychodynamics of Human Development, which certainly also feeds into my tutoring practice. My methods are, of course, also informed by a thorough understanding of assessment requirements and criteria both for school entrance examinations and public examinations. I believe that a positive and confident attitude towards the academic subject being studied can be hugely beneficial in terms of results, and I try to engender this by providing a supportive yet challenging relationship and environment for study. I thoroughly enjoy tutoring each of the subjects I teach, and hope that I can transmit my enthusiasm and energy to my pupils.

I have a passion for ceramics; I hold a diploma in ceramics and have a small ceramics studio, where I enjoy working with porcelain. I love visiting museums and art galleries; my favourite is probably the British Museum, as it holds so many fascinating objects from different places and ages which never fail to amaze me. I take great pleasure in reading and I very much enjoy travelling - I do so whenever I have the chance. I am a mother to two children, who are growing up all too fast! I also love taking photos, going to the cinema, walking and yoga.