Former Head of English, Cambridge MEd: GCSE, IGCSE, IB and A Level English Tuition for Top-Band Writing

Find out more about Rupert

• When did you develop an interest in your chosen field and in private tutoring?

  I’ve always been drawn to English because it’s the one subject where the work is never finished. You can reread a paragraph and notice something you genuinely missed the first time, even when you thought
  you knew it inside out. That feeling of discovery hooked me early on.
  
  Tutoring came later, almost by accident. I started helping a couple of students who were bright but stuck, not because they lacked ability, but because school had made the subject feel like a set of hoops to jump through. Once I realised how quickly confidence shifts when a student gets clear feedback and a concrete plan, I was in. I like the precision of it: one student, one set of habits, one next step at a time.
  
  Now I teach online, mostly GCSE and A Level, and the work still feels oddly intimate. It’s you, a text, and a question that refuses to let you hide.

• Tell us more about the subject you teach, the topics you like to discuss with students (and possibly those you like a little less).

  I teach English Language and English Literature, so we move between craft and meaning. One day we are pulling apart how a writer controls a reader with sentence length and viewpoint. The next we are arguing about morality, power, class, love, or identity and doing it with the text as evidence, not vibes.
  
  I love teaching close reading because it gives students a kind of authority. When they can point to a single word and explain what it does, they stop feeling like they are guessing what the examiner wants.
  I’m also a big fan of the “so what?” conversation. Why does this metaphor matter? Why does this structural shift change our sympathy? If a point doesn’t survive that question, it probably isn’t worth writing.
  
  Topics I enjoy most tend to be the uncomfortable ones: hypocrisy, manipulation, self-deception, reputation, and the way people perform versions of themselves to stay safe. Students often have sharp instincts about those ideas. They just need help translating instinct into analysis.
  
  What I like a little less is the myth that English is purely subjective. Of course interpretation matters, but it’s not a free-for-all. I spend a lot of time gently unteaching that misunderstanding.

• Did you have any role models; a teacher that inspired you?

  Yes. I had a teacher who treated the classroom like a place where ideas mattered, not just answers. They were strict about evidence but generous about disagreement. You could challenge them, but you had
  to earn it with the text.
  
  That combination stuck with me. I try to recreate it in tutoring: high standards, no waffle, and a real sense that the student’s thinking is taken seriously. The goal is not to borrow my interpretation. It’s to learn how to build their own and defend it.

• What do you think are the qualities required to be a good tutor?

  First, clarity. If you can’t explain a skill in a way a tired teenager can use at 8pm, you don’t really understand it.
  
  Second, diagnostic attention. A good tutor can spot whether a student is struggling because they don’t understand the text, don’t know how to structure an answer, lack vocabulary, or simply panic under time
  pressure. Those problems look similar on the page, but the fix is different.
  
  Third, honesty. Not harshness. Honesty. If a paragraph is vague, it needs saying. If a student is capable of more, they need to hear that too.
  
  Finally, patience with the process. Real improvement in English comes from repetition with feedback: practise, refine, try again. The tutor’s job is to make that cycle feel possible and worth doing.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your subject or your days at school.

  One of my favourite tutoring moments was with a student who insisted they were “bad at English” because they couldn’t memorise quotations. We stopped treating quotes as museum pieces and started treating them as tools. Instead of learning a whole speech, they learned two or three short, flexible phrases and practised “zooming in” on them.
  
  A week later they messaged after a mock and said, essentially, “I actually knew what to write.” Nothing magical had happened. They hadn’t become a different person. They’d just been given a method that
  reduced the fear. That’s when English becomes teachable.
  
  At school, I wish someone had told me earlier that good writing is mostly rewriting. The students who do best are rarely the ones with the fanciest vocabulary. They’re the ones who can tighten a sentence, cut the fluff, and make an argument sharper.

• What were the difficulties or challenges you faced or still facing in your subject?

  English can feel slippery because it mixes creativity with rigour. Students are often told to “analyse” without being shown what analysis actually looks like in sentences. That gap creates the classic problem: lots of
  plot, lots of opinion, very little method.
  
  Personally, the challenge is resisting lazy shortcuts. It’s tempting to hand students a pre-made interpretation. But that doesn’t hold up in an exam where the extract or question shifts. So I keep forcing the work back onto language, structure, and the line of argument. It’s slower, but it produces independent writers.
  
  Another ongoing challenge is confidence. A surprising number of able students have decided they are not “a natural” at English. The subject suffers from that myth more than maths or science. Part of my job is dismantling it.

• Do you have a particular passion? Is it teaching in general or an element of the subject or something completely different?

  It’s teaching, but specifically the moment a student realises they can control the writing. When they stop hoping the examiner will be kind and start making deliberate choices: a tighter topic sentence, a better
  embedded quote, a clearer comparison, a more purposeful conclusion.
  
  Within the subject, I’m especially passionate about rhetoric and voice. Even in exam writing, students can sound like themselves while still being precise and high-level. I want them to feel proud of the work, not just relieved it’s finished.

• What makes you a Superprof (besides answering these interview questions :-P)?

  I take English seriously, but I don’t make it mystifying. My sessions are structured, practical, and very focused on what moves a student up the mark scheme. We practise the exact skills that get rewarded, and we do
  it with feedback that’s specific enough to use immediately.
  
  I’m also careful about confidence. I won’t flatter a student with vague praise, but I will show them, clearly, what they did well and exactly what to do next. Over time, that builds independence, which is the whole point.
  
  If you want a tutor who will push you, keep you accountable, and help you write with real control, that’s what I do.