Robert H

Hi, my name is Rob and I am a fifth-year medical student at the University of Oxford. I was awarded a BA, class 2.i, in Medical Sciences at Oxford in 2018, having specialised in cardiovascular, respiratory and renal physiology, as well as conducting a research project into the assessment of osteoarthritis by MRI. For three years I have been the president of the Christ Church medical society, a role in which I am responsible for organising events and speakers to come to Christ Church, my college at Oxford, to augment the medical education of the students there. Prior to this, I worked for two years as the publicity lead for the student global health think-tank Polygeia, leading advertising drives for recruiting article editors and writers, as well as publicising our annual conference in London. I am a keen rugby player, having played for both Christ Church and Oxford university, and have also enjoyed representing Christ Church for a variety of other sports. I have been a tutor for three years, giving me extensive tutoring experience in helping students of a range of ages and backgrounds achieve their full academic potential.

I have spent three years and over 300 hours tutoring up to A-level Sciences in both face-to-face tutorials as well as in an online capacity. I have privately tutored students of a variety of ages and seen several students through both GCSEs and A-levels. In addition to this, I have tutored students studying undergraduate medical courses in Physiology, Pharmacology and Anatomy. After returning to my 6th form college to run mock interview sessions with the prospective medical applicants, I extended my tutoring into both Oxbridge and medical school applications, helping students with both interview technique and writing their personal statements. I have seen several students through the BMAT and UKCAT exams necessary to apply for Medicine courses in the UK.

When tutoring Sciences, there are two major aspects that need to be addressed. Firstly, the student must have a good understanding what information is required of them to remember and utilise. Secondly, students must be able to communicate that information to answer exam questions in a succinct, intelligent and coherent manner. In this way, I ensure that my students are familiar with the exam board’s specification for their subject, and in each lesson will identify which part of the specification we will be covering. In this way, my students become confident that they are learning content that is relevant for their exams. When covering content for the first time, I always try to make sure that the lessons are interactive and discussion based, much like the tutorial system at Oxford, to ensure the student is engaging fully with the material. As well as teaching content, I believe it is critical for students to have as much exposure as possible to exam style questions as possible. Therefore, from very early on, I make sure that I use exam based past paper questions to give examples of how the content we are covering might be presented in an exam and, using the mark schemes, what a perfect answer would look like. This means that students not only understand exactly what is expected of them to know but can also communicate that knowledge in an exam setting to achieve the highest marks.

I have tutored: AQA GCSE Sciences, Maths and A-level Biology Edexcel GCSE Sciences and Maths OCR A-level Biology WJEC A-level Biology iGCSE Sciences and Maths