Jessica

Hello! My name is Jessica and I am a study mentor and tutor.

Although an undergraduate student at the University of Exeter, I have over five years of tutoring experience. I have taught students in both the sciences and humanities as well as students with special needs, teaching them how to improve their learning techniques during class and for exams.

Over this time, I have come to realise that often, students are very good at comprehending facts and ideas in lessons, but it is the process of transforming that knowledge into long-term memory, being able to re-use that information in an exam or essay and stay productive through their studies, especially when it comes to public exams, that is difficult.
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This is why I make the distinction between being a study mentor and a tutor. Tutoring is becoming an increasingly popular option for parents whose children are facing pressure through tougher exams, having to learn more subject content than ever before in often bigger classrooms with less attention focussed on each individual student. However, what is missing from students' lives is the ability to discuss with someone not just the content of a subject, but how to approach that content: how to learn it, how best to spend revision time, how to pace themselves during anxious exam periods and generally how to organise themselves.

Public exams are often the first time that students are having to organise themselves under extreme pressure. They haven't had a chance to practice which techniques work and which do not. Unfortunately though, we are told that exam grades represent intelligence, when most likely, they represent a good revision technique and organisational skills.
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This is why I am passionate about being a study mentor. I believe that students should have the skills to learn and revise effectively right when they need it, not in hindsight after going through public exams. By being their guide, I can help them work productively towards their goals, implementing the study skills that I have researched and know are effective.
I really believe that a student's ability to do well in their exams is not about how talented they are, but how productively they can apply themselves during the revision and exam period.

My specialities include:

History: Russia (1850s to early 1960s), Britain (1950s to early 1990s), Churchill (His early political views, premiership, WWII and 1950s), Crusades (First, Second and Third Crusades) and any coursework.

English: Poetry, plays, novels, "unseen" exam material.
In particular: King Lear, Doctor Faustus, Enron, The Moonstone, Arthur and George, Paradise Lost (Book 9), The Whitsun Weddings, Mean Time, Turn of the century Victorian literature (such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Heart of Darkness, The Time Machine, The Man Who Was Thursday, Sons and Lovers, Great Expectations, Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Dracula) and any coursework.

Tutoring Experience

Over five years teaching English Language, English Literature, History, Biology and Study Skills, including students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia at both GCSE and A Level. I do one-to-one and group tuition.

Tutoring Approach

Over the past five years as a tutor for GCSE and A Level students, I have found that the problem for students is not always the content that they struggle with, but connecting with the content: applying the right learning technique to a subject to learn it efficiently, seeing the big picture of a topic as well as all the details.

Most of the time when I ask students how they plan to learn a topic, I get the reply, ‘read it’ or ‘write notes’, which are a couple of the most inefficient ways to learn. Even though more and more schools are focussing on study skills in lessons, productive learning techniques aren't always getting through to students, having a big impact on grades.

It's because of this that I have have become so passionate about study mentoring. Through a personal approach tailored to each specific student I mentor, I:
-Discuss with the student their course requirements, their personal goals and what they struggle with.
-Create a long-term plan focussing in detail on how to approach a subject as well as teaching subject content if required.
-Create a written review of each study session, with advice and super-curricular and extracurricular ideas to move forward with.