I'm a highly experienced A-level Philosophy and Ethics tutor providing tuition,
not only for the more popular OCR examination board syllabus; but also for the Edexcel and WJEC examination boards.
I'm a full-time, independent philosophy tutor; so apart from occasional part-time teaching for the University of Oxford,
I work entirely for my own private students. This means I'm not trying to find time at the end of a hard day, or at weekends, for
private tuition!
You may be asking yourself "What do I need to do to get an A or A* at A-level Philosophy & Ethics?". In
answer to that question I've devised, and developed over the years, my recommended
tuition system.
It is well-known to educational psychologists that attending lectures or watching instructional videos is a very
inefficient way of absorbing and organising information.
Much greater progress is made through, first, reading, thinking and writing about some philosophical topic;
and then reflecting on the detailed, contextual
comments of an expert.
We have occasional tutorials when the learning need dictates, but the bulk of my tuition consists in setting
and critiquing exam questions. This also has the advantage
of making the tuition budget go much further!
The system of A-level Philosophy & Ethics tuition I recommend, for both Edexcel & WJEC courses, at both AS and A2 levels, has four components:
The philosophy essay writing masterclass imparts the core knowledge and skills required to answer
the exam questions in the appropriate style. This includes an introduction to the examiners'
assessment objectives.
My student's essay writing skills are then honed by writing a series of essays, carefully
selected to develop their understanding of each topic systematically.
Each essay is returned with:
So each essay is a rich, formative learning experience: the breakdown against assessment objectives
is particularly useful in showing where effort must be concentrated.
We have occasional tutorials, of course; to introduce a new topic, or to discuss an essay that has not gone too well:
but the bulk of the student's efforts should be on developing the core skill of writing exam-style essays.
As the exams approach, we switch to hand-written, timed essays under exam conditions, addressing mock questions
