Tom

Tom combined county-standard rugby with top A-level grades at school before reading Theology and Religious Studies at Clare College, University of Cambridge. In his final year he captained the Clare College University Challenge team to the quarter-finals.

Tom began teaching at 16, volunteering to teach English at a local primary school and mentoring younger students. After Cambridge he trained as a secondary RE teacher through the PGCE at King’s College London, including a placement at Nower Hill High School. He spent three months teaching English to street children in Delhi, where working largely unsupervised taught him to develop his own strategies, such as turning two teenagers’ competitive streak into debating practice. He went on to a career in fundraising with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

Tom’s tuition is focused and goal-oriented: he breaks each ultimate goal into small, achievable steps, which builds both results and motivation. In early sessions he pays close attention to what resonates with each student and adapts accordingly, and he considers their emotional needs, motivations and feelings about learning as carefully as their academic ones.