Alvin Tutoring

Alvin Tutoring

Private Tutor · Hackney & Islington

I'm an Oxford English graduate and I've been working as a private tutor since 2018, based in Stoke Newington, with over 5,000 hours of tutoring experience. I teach English, Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

I spent 2 years tutoring for the Escape Charity, where I taught English GCSE group classes at Gladesmore School. I have also worked as a mock examiner for Oxbridge Applications, where I conducted over 100 mock interviews. I am a top tutor at a number of London's major agencies, including Athena Tuition, Bright Young Things, Bonas Macfarlane and Enjoy Education.

I've taught students of all different ages, including children of high-net-worth individuals and celebrities in the public eye. I have plenty of experience and enjoy working with students with dyslexia, ADHD, cerebral palsy, and autism. Many of my students have won places at top grammar schools and independent private schools such as City of London and South Hampstead.

I teach primarily in the Hackney and Islington borough, but I also teach online using Zoom via whiteboard. I am a very local Stokey tutor, and have tutored many past and current students of Stoke Newington School, as well as for the St. Mary Magdalene Governor's test.

I am happy to do a free 15 minute chat to discuss tutoring and help you decide. If you would like to do a 'chemistry' test, I can also offer a half-price first session, so that you can see whether I am the right fit for your student at a lower cost.

I have had many happy students and clients over the years who would be more than happy to provide a reference if asked.

If you feel like I might be the right tutor for you, please feel free to enquire further by emailing me at alvinyututoring@gmail.com or texting me on 07583 495663.

Approach

From the first lesson, I try to always establish what the goals of our sessions are (exam, coursework, etc). I try to lay out as clearly as possible what the process of achieving that goal looks like.

I try to build an atmosphere of communal activity, treating all children as equals. I generally use "we" when speaking, because I see the tutor and the child as a team, with a common, shared goal.

The philosophy of my lessons is skills-based and practice-led. I believe that all academic skills — whether it be arithmetic, essay-writing, or creative writing - can be learned through deliberate practice, much like learning to play an instrument or a sport.

Rather than speaking at a student passively, I want them to be doing. The core of this teaching style is therefore discrete exercises - simple, chunked, fun puzzles that help the practical application of the subject. (More examples of this can be found in the approach section.)

I also encourage web-based learning, for example using gamification to memorise large chunks of information and developing quizzes to aid vocabulary learning.

Ultimately, the end goal will be a student who can think, write, and solve academic problems independently, rather than one who has simply memorised the right essay or formula.

Sometimes this approach has unexpected results. One of my students inadvertently used my creative writing techniques to write a novel, which went on to receive a publishing offer!

Exams, of course, are a different beast. Closer to an exam, I will start using past papers and work on timed practice, to slowly bring skills learned over the year into practice. I'll work on localised areas of weakness — timing, nerves, essay structure - and iron these out one by one.

Despite this rigour of preparation, I have a very relaxed, calming attitude during class. There is a large body of scientific research indicating that improving at any skill requires two things: (a) focused, discrete improvement on targeted weaknesses and (b) honest, clear feedback from an external source. My tutoring is informed by these two principles — and through hard work I genuinely believe I can teach children the skills to succeed not just in their exams but in later life.

School Entry Success (7+/11+)

Subjects Taught

Testimonials

I am happy to provide references upon request. Over the last decade of tutoring I have had many happy past clients and students who would be more than happy to provide a reference, if necessary.

"I wanted to pass on a compliment — when Sarah submitted an essay in English Lit (as she too is doing A-Level English Lit) her teacher said whoever taught her was a genius!! True."

Mother of GCSE student, 2024 — taught daughter GCSE English

"I'm grateful for your help, each and every aspect. You've influenced me in more ways than I can list, from my thinking to my values for learning and so on. I'm proud and fortunate to have encountered great teachers in the field of literature — you, my GCSE teacher, and whoever awaits me after my A-Levels."

A-Level student, 2025 — homeschooled A-Level English

"Absolutely fantastic tutor. Always on time and has worked well with both my children. My older one has been offered places at Bancroft and City of London Junior School for Girls."

Father of student, 2025 — 7+ Maths — both daughters got into City of London Girls School, South Hampstead, Chigwell, Bancroft's

"Alvin has tutored my twin daughters to help get them through their English Literature and Language GCSE. They were feeling unconfident and not getting the grades they wanted, and after just a couple of weeks of lessons with Alvin they were feeling so much better about English and have gone on to get good grades, feel confident and really enjoy the subject. Thank you Alvin!"

Mother of two English GCSE students, 2024

"Alvin is an excellent tutor with a very calm presence. His patient, methodical approach eases away the stress and worries, while identifying areas of focus to solidify foundations and build confidence. I would not hesitate to recommend him."

Mother of Maths GCSE student, 2023

"We have just met Alvin but he has been super so far and came well recommended from a neighbour too. Smart, professional and patient — he is a great tutor. He quickly assessed my daughter and could accurately ascertain her ability and what needs focus. Lucky to have found him and have utmost trust in his ability."

Mother of GCSE student, 2020–present

"Wow. Alvin is a very impressive tutor. We took him on with three weeks to go before Sandy's GCSE Maths exam. We had very little hope as we had tried other tutors before. In 3 weeks, Alvin moved our son up 4 grades, from a 2 to a 6."

Mother of student, GCSE Maths, 2025

"Alvin tutored my son in GCSE English and progressed him from a predicted grade of 3 to achieving a 6. He was especially mindful of my son's dyslexia and thoughtful in his preparations. Can't recommend him highly enough."

Mother of GCSE English student

"My son has been working with Alvin to study his English Literature A-Level for over a year. His confidence has grown so much and his grades have improved to A–B, up from C–D. Thank you so much for all your help!"

Mother of A-Level English student

"Alvin has been an invaluable asset helping my son prepare for the 11+. He has been patient, supportive, and committed. My son has demonstrated real progress in his writing and confidence."

Mother of 11+ student — gained a place at St. Mary Magdalene School

Approach

The core of my approach is targeted and specific. I work to identify core weaknesses and strengths in a student's skillset, ensuring that I praise the strengths of the student, and find practical solutions to work on their weaknesses. My focus with tutoring is to fill in the gaps that school teachers generally leave behind - in a hands-on and practical way.

One important part of my approach is that I build skills, alongside content. I don't believe speaking at children for an hour is very helpful - the goal of my lessons is for my students to be 'active' as opposed to 'passive'.

I teach these skills throughout our lessons through a series of exercises that encourage independence of thought. Discrete exercises are the core of my teaching practice - simple, chunked, fun puzzles, exercises that help practical application of the subject.

I also encourage web and internet based learning, for example using gamification to memorise large chunks of information, and developing quizzes to aid vocabulary learning.

English

In English, skills would involve:

On the writing side, I help students fine-tune their prose through writing exercises. This might be improving their technical vocabulary and removing colloquialisms, helping their sentence-by-sentence construction, or for the more advanced students, helping them understand argument threading and signposting.

On the analytical side, this involves laterally examining something like a metaphor, and being able to offer or explain its effectiveness. For example, we might spend ten minutes of every lesson looking at objects like 'a can of coke' and writing down as many things Coca-Cola could symbolise, to help their analytical, creative skills. We would work towards making these exercises practical as soon as possible by weaving this generative lateral thinking into essay writing.

Maths

My approach in Maths is fairly straightforward. I will find 5 core areas of weakness - let's say angles, geometry, fractions, algebra and ratio. I will sit down each week and unpack one area of weakness, doing targeted exercises from the ground up. I will use a variety of different methods to try and explain a topic - using bean counters, or a deck of cards, and try to apply this as much as possible to real-life problems. Once I have taught a topic confidently, my priority is the retention of information.

I will consistently thread in the previous subject, to ensure that knowledge is sufficiently ingrained. I am a firm believer in spaced repetition and content threading. Spaced repetition is an evidence-based learning technique where new and more difficult material is shown more frequently, while older and less difficult material is shown less frequently, in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect.

Example Lessons

To give you a sense of what I actually teach, here are two short examples of the kind of thing that might come up in a lesson.

Specificity vs description

Creative writing teaching is commonly mis-taught. Although it's an integral part of the GCSE English Language syllabus (25%!), and of most 11+ English exams, often it leads to a lot of scratched heads.

Very often students write and struggle with a creative writing piece. And the teacher's feedback inevitably reads the same— be more descriptive! Use more adjectives! Too many spelling mistakes!

And the student goes away and writes a new creative writing piece, but receive the same feedback, doomed never to actually improve their grade.

I want to give a 5 minute lesson that will change the way you think of creative writing.

Specificity vs description

'Be more descriptive' — probably the most oft-heard feedback in creative writing. And it really cringes me out because it isn't wrong — it's often poorly understood.

What we need to do is to get at the heart of what 'descriptive' means. Because more description doesn't mean better description.

Take the sentence:

The sun shines on the flowers.

I could be more descriptive here. I could add more adjectives (which is usually the port-of-call of most students).

So then we get something like this:

The big, beautiful sun shines on the blue lake and lovely flowers.

The trap is — the above sentence is not really better. The words 'big', 'beautiful' don't really add much to the sentence. So more adjective doesn't mean better writing.

So what is the answer?

It's specificity of description.

Good creative writing is about being minutely specific.

Good writers know the names of every plant: chrysanthemum, rhododendrons, sunflowers. Colours that you can paint with: cerulean blue, mustard yellow, amber red. Good writers can tell you what specific toothpaste brand their character's use and the feeling of the glycerin mixed with artificial mint.

Good writers don't just say 'dog'. They name the specific breed: a cocker spaniel, a labrador, or a beagle. Because reading is about visualising, and how can you visualise a big, sad dog? But you can visualise a golden retriever instantly, in far fewer words.

Good writers don't use unspecific verbs — walks, runs, they use metaphors in their verbs - canter, sprint, danced, beamed.

And if we apply the above technique to the 'boring' sentence…

The clay-red sun beamed over the shimmering, azure lake, and the violet pink chrysanthemums flowers.

I've not really changed the subject, or syntax of this sentence. But I've added in specificity. Sure, it's not perfect — but you can see it.

So that's my first lesson for creative writing. Don't be more descriptive. Be more specific.

How to read a word problem

The most common complaint I hear from parents is some version of this: they can do Maths, but they really struggle with worded problems.

The answer, almost always, is not that the student doesn't understand the Maths. It is that they haven't been taught how to read a Maths question.

Most students read a word problem in the same way they would read a story. They start at the beginning, read through to the end, and hope that the answer will somehow reveal itself. They are trying to read, understand and calculate all at the same time, which can make even a relatively simple question seem much more complicated than it actually is.

Take the following question:

A bat and a ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

Most students will instinctively say 10p.

This is a really interesting mistake because the student usually does understand the individual pieces of information. They know that £1.10 minus £1 is 10p. The problem is that they have substituted the difficult problem for a simpler one. The phrase "the bat costs £1 more than the ball" has effectively become "the bat costs £1". The brain has simplified the question without the student realising it.

But if the ball costs 10p, and the bat costs £1 more than the ball, then the bat must cost £1.10. That would make the total £1.20, not £1.10.

So how do we approach the problem differently?

Step 1: Read to the end first and find the question. Before picking up a pencil, I want the student to work out what they are actually being asked to find. Here, the question is asking us to find the price of the ball. We know that the bat and the ball together cost £1.10, and we know that the bat costs £1 more than the ball. So rather than trying to solve the whole problem in our heads, we can start by turning those pieces of information into Maths:

Bat + ball = £1.10
Bat = ball + £1

If we check our (incorrect) answer of 10p for the ball, this would not work with both statements. If the ball is 10p, then the bat would be £1. But then the bat and the ball together would be £1.20!

Step 2: Turn the words into Maths. This is the part that students often haven't been explicitly taught. A word problem is essentially a Maths problem hidden inside a paragraph of English. Our job is to find the Maths. In this case, we have an unknown quantity, so let's call the ball x. If ball = x, then the bat must be x + 1, because the bat costs £1 more than the ball. We can now put it into an equation:

(x + 1) + x = 1.10

At this point, the word problem has disappeared. We are no longer trying to understand a story about a bat and a ball. We have a simple algebra problem in front of us.

Step 3: Solve it.

2x + 1 = 1.10
2x = 0.10
x = £0.05

So the ball costs 5p. We can then check the answer. If the ball costs 5p, the bat must cost £1.05. Together, they cost £1.10, so we know our answer is correct.

The important thing here isn't really the algebra. It is the process of getting from the words to the algebra in the first place. A lot of students who tell me they "can't do word problems" can actually do the Maths perfectly well. What they struggle with is knowing which information matters, what the question is asking them to find, and how to translate the language of the question into something mathematical. Once you teach them how to read the question in this way, word problems become much less intimidating.

Contact Me / Pricing

Pricing

Please get in touch for pricing — rates vary depending on the subject, level, and whether travel is involved.

I also offer group sessions, which can be a more affordable option for families. Get in touch to discuss what would work best for you.

Get in touch

I offer a free introductory call to discuss your child's needs and whether I'm the right fit. Fill in the form below and I'll be in touch within 24 hours.

Or get in touch directly: alvinyututoring@gmail.com · 07583 495663