Clay Hill Tutors & Clay Hill Tuition

Personal Description:
My name is Fernando, and I'm a (European) Portuguese native speaker.

Born in Portugal, I moved to the London in 2010 and worked in education and safeguarding professional up to 2024. At the beginning of 2025 I moved up north and I'm now self-employed - mostly teaching online and doing interior design jobs whilst retraining in this area and overseeing/project management my new home renovation work.

I provide high quality private language tuition - listening, speaking, reading, writing & grammar - with consistently excellent results:

"What Fernando did was to start with my interests, which really made the lessons fun, and helped me to learn Portuguese more quickly!" Alex

Do you want to?
• Learn European Portuguese?
• Prepare for a Portuguese proficiency examination
• Pick up a few useful phrases for a holiday?
• Improve your business communication skills?

Portugueses: Procuram melhorar o vosso nível de inglês falado e escrito?
Brasileiros: Vocês estão procurando melhorar o seu aprendizado da língua inglesa?

NOTE: At the moment I'm not teaching Brazilian Portuguese. I believe students should find a native teacher from the specific country they aim to visit/live. Any tutor can teach the grammar and basics, but in terms of speaking practice there is a real advantage to learn with a native speaker/tutor.

Teaching Experience:
My teaching methods are reinforced by my significant experience as a tutor, trainer, a college teacher, a mentor for young people, and a coach for adult learners. I am patient and dedicated in my approach, with and an unshakeable belief that my students WILL achieve their goals.

Tutoring Approach:
My teaching practice encompasses:
• A range of resources of the highest standard
• Fun and flexible materials such as music, film clips and games
• Thorough linguistic knowledge
• Tailored lessons to meet your learning needs
• Engaging and relevant homework
• Continuous assessment with ongoing feedback
• Cultural and historical essentials

It's important to me that the tuition experience is comfortable and convenient for you. Due to COVID-19 I've decided to only offer online tuition until further notice.

"I found Fernando really knowledgeable with excellent organisation skills. He was especially considerate about organising the tuition around my job" Ian

I teach all ages from beginner to advanced levels
• Book stand alone lessons: pay £25 (one hour lessons)
• Book 5 lessons and commit to 1 lesson per week: pay only £112.50 (get 10% off = saving £12.50)
• Book 10 lessons and commit to 2 lessons per week: pay only £212.50 (get 15% off = saving £37.50)
• Book 15 lessons and commit to 2 lessons per week: pay only £300 (get 20% off = saving £75.00)
• Book 20 lessons and commit to 3 lessons per week: pay only £375 (get 25% off = saving £125.00)

I'll be flexible in rescheduling lessons within same week/next week so long as these are canceled with more than 24 hours notice.

Lessons will be counted if failing to attend without any notice or less than 24 hours notice (aside from extraordinary reasons).

Failing to adhere to the original learning plan and not rescheduling within the expected period will mean you'll loose unused lessons as these will expire after the allocated weeks (5 and 10 lesson packs have a max learning period of 6 weeks; 15 and 20 lesson packs have a max learning period of 8 weeks).

Get in touch for more information about:
• Group classes
• English/Portuguese translation
• Proofreading Portuguese

Get in touch to book your initial lesson so I can assess your level and your preferred learning style (25-minute assessment for £20).

I look forward to learning together!

Fernando

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Personal Description:
Hi there,
My name is Vera. I am a native speaker of German, a fully qualified teacher and 38 years old. I have a B.A. in German and English and an A-level in French. My exam results are 100% pass rate at A-level for the past nine years and 100% pass rate with students achieving 9 - 7 (A* - A) grades at GSCE level.
I have been living in England for 15 years now, I think I am a good humoured and honest person and I love teaching people languages.

Teaching Experience:
I qualified as a teacher with a starred first at Southampton University and worked in a secondary school until deciding to work as a private tutor only.
For more than 10 years now I have been teaching in schools or privately as well as working in translations, it is huge fun and I enjoy working with different people.

Tutoring Approach:
My approach to tutoring is to assess the needs of the tutee and plan lessons accordingly. I think it is very important to know the grammar and vocabulary of a language in order to speak it fluently.
Please note, prices are correct for when you come to my house/online tuition. If you would like to meet somewhere or at your house, I charge £5 extra for petrol money and driving time within reasonable driving distance.

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Personal Description:
Bonjour !

I am a French native tutor with 7 years experience of teaching French to pupils of various ages and levels of expertise.

As I am back to France, I deliver now online lessons and conversations through the internet.

What you will need is very simple: a computer with Skype on it or Zoom or Google Hangout, earphones and a good Internet access.

So, if you haven't yet found your French teacher to help you with your learning or if prefer to learn in the comfort of your home and spare the travel time, please contact me!

Teaching Experience:
ADULT
2011 - now: varied experiences in one to one or two to one tuitions:
- from survival to intermediate + GCSE exam preparation, A level exam preparation.

2011 - 2016: group class in a company, Trend Controls, Horsham- A1/A2 level
2012 - 2016: group class in a company, Trend Controls, Horsham- A0 level

CHILDREN
2015-2016: Maitresse for lespuces, Horsham, Early years French Clubs
2013- 2014:
- French teacher for Year 1 (KS1), Kingslea Primary School, Horsham (Volunteering)
2012-2013:
- French teacher for Reception (Fundation), Kingslea Primary School, Horsham (Volunteering)
- Private tuition with a 4 years' boy.

Tutoring Approach:
I believe that having a native teacher is a huge advantage for students of the French language wanting to perfect their pronunciation, improve fluency and knowledge of both proper and currently spoken French.

My tuition is tailor-made and flexible, according to each pupil's needs and requirements.
I ask the pupil to do homework, as there is no learning without personal work.
Depending on the level, I prefer to follow a book, for example Façon de parler 1 for absolute beginners. I of course add exercises, explanations, texts and resources to the book.


Please feel free to contact me for any enquiry: I am available for weekly lessons or for a one-off session!

Alors, à bientôt j'espère !

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Personal Description:
I have been involved in computers and IT for 27 years. I was first of all a professional computer games programmer / designer before moving into my current role as an IT Solutions Architect. Over the last 21 years in IT consultancy, I have developed a breadth and depth of knowledge in IT and computing which is hard to find almost anywhere in the UK having dealt with almost all types of systems and aspects of IT.

I'm not able to teach you all the intricacies of the Microsoft Office products like Excel or Word, but I can train you in system design, system support, software development and pretty much anything in between. I have detailed experience in virtually all Microsoft operating systems and applications. I am also very experienced on VMware products. I am also able to assist your training in application and web development in C, C#, VB, scripting and assembler (68000 & 6502).

Teaching Experience:
21 years of mentoring and training junior staff on systems including Microsoft operating systems and applications.
Delivered a classroom based Lotus Notes course for Computacentre.
Developing syllabi and exam question papers for the British Computer Society (BCS).

Tutoring Approach:
I would first of all need to know what your learning requirements are. What is it you want to know about and to what level? From that point, I would create a training plan for you to reach that goal.

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Personal Description:
I am an energetic, enthusiastic and well qualified Mandarin teacher, who has already had over 10 years of teaching experience, including UK, Germany, Belgium, Taiwan and China, two international schools, two UK independent schools and four different language centres.

Teaching Experience:
Lecturer of Mandarin Chinese, University of West England Jan.2016- present
I am presently teaching one lecture per week in the Business and Law department to classes of up to 30 adult students. With the use of a variety of materials and drawing on my past experiences of creating a Chinese programme, I have created a suitable syllabus for beginners who will likely be using their new language skills in their future business positions.

Teacher of Chinese, Badminton School, Bristol, UK Sept.2015 - Sept.2018
This permanent Monday -Friday position gave me my first experience in preparing students for GCSE, iGCSE and A-level examinations. Due to how international my school is, I teach native Chinese speakers and non-native speakers. This breadth of student-base has expanded my skills considerably. From teaching students their first lesson to analysing millennia-old Chinese literature with native-speakers, I have enjoyed this challenge. I have developed the Chinese syllabus while here, which now has curriculum classes in years 7, 8 & 9. Last year saw my first two non-native speaking students take their GCSEs; both my British and my Korean student got As, after I had taught them from beginner level, two years previously. I am also the GCSE examiner for the oral summer examinations.

Teacher of Mandarin Chinese, Bristol Grammar School, Bristol, UK Jan. 2014 -July 2015
I taught Mandarin Chinese to a range of ages, all of whom were absolute beginners. My youngest group consisted of six-year-olds and my oldest group consisted of seventeen-year-olds. I brought Chinese into the school, which continues to teach compulsory Chinese classes to year 7, even after I moved on to Badminton School in 2015

Teacher of Mandarin Chinese, Bristol Language School, Bristol, UK Sept. 2014 - Aug. 2015
This part-time position saw me teaching Chinese to different levels of adult learners in the evening. My students ranged from absolute beginners to B1 level.

Teacher of Mandarin Chinese, International House Bristol, Bristol, UK Sept. 2013 - Jan. 2016
This part-time position saw me teaching Chinese to different levels of adult learners in the evening. My students ranged from absolute beginners to B1 level.

Teacher of Mandarin Chinese, Ms. Sun's Mandarin Corner, Beijing, China Sept. 2012 - June 2013
After graduating from BLCU, Beijing, where I completed my Masters in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, I set up and taught in this school, which added to my ever-growing classroom experience by teaching students of all ages. I taught up to twenty hours per week, and had students from eight different countries. Although I tried to use Mandarin whenever I could, I could confidently use English or German to explain certain points if necessary.

Teacher of Mandarin and EAL, Rego British International School, Beijing, China Sep. 2012 - Dec. 2012
A very rewarding and challenging position, which expanded my teaching experience tremendously and offered me experience teaching the English curriculum (including GCSE Mandarin), as well as time teaching children with a vast range of ages and levels of Chinese. I taught both Mandarin Chinese and many aspects of Chinese culture and history.

Lecturer of Mandarin Chinese, Chinese Centre, Wen Hua Uni, Taipei, Taiwan July 2011 - Jan. 2012
In this exciting position, I taught Europeans, Asians, North Americans and Australasian all as part of my one-to-one and group class programmes.

Lecturer of Mandarin Chinese, Chinese Centre, Fu-Jen University, Taipei, Taiwan April - June 2011
Keen to get back into the classroom and get some first-hand experience to assist me while writing my Masters' dissertation, I got a position at my previous university, where I met some very interesting students from countries such as Honduras, Vanuatu, Germany, Paraguay, Italy, Britain, The USA, Japan and Korea.

Teacher of Mandarin Chinese, Taipei Language Institute, Taipei, Taiwan Jan. - April 2011
This was a useful experience, as I taught both group classes as well as handful of one-to-one classes.

Practical Lecturer of Mandarin Chinese, Sinology Department, The University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany Sept. - Dec. 2010
Using the textbook "Taiwan Today", I taught my class both Mandarin Chinese and about Taiwanese culture. I really appreciate my time here as I was given the freedom to create my own programme and to create each lecture. During my time at The University of Heidelberg, I covered a few of my colleagues' first semester Mandarin classes.

Lecturer of Mandarin Chinese, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China 2009-2010
During the first year of my Masters course, I assisted and taught a number of Chinese courses.

Chinese, English and German tutor 2006 - 2010
I have taught private adult classes in both Taiwan and China. This was my first professional experience of teaching people from such a varied cultural background.

Tutoring Approach:
I am a calm, patient and energetic teacher. I love sharing my culture and native language with students, as I love travelling and learning new languages and cultures myself.

Everybody's development must be attended to individually. As a teacher, I am able to ascertain and cater for the educational needs of every one of my students. I know that every learner will have varying speeds of learning and will be able to access the content of the lesson in different ways. In my ten years of teaching experience, I have taught from primary school children up to international business people.

Whether you want a tutor for GCSE or A-level preparation, inspiring a love of the language in younger learners, want to learn Mandarin for fun, travelling, for business or for HSK exam, I have had experience teaching all types of language learners.

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Personal Description:
"After bachelor and masters in computer applications for 6 years, Since 2006, Servicing and advancing along with IT Industry. Being specialised more than a decade in Enterprise Software Architecture and BigData Technology Space, have been enjoying solving problems in BigData, such as streaming solutions Confluent Kafka, data design in NoSQL databases (HBase, Cassandra,..), search indexing solutions (Splunk, Solr..), data processing techniques using different frameworks Spark, Kafka, data visualisation presentations using Tableau, QlikView/QlikSense, Sisense, Banana, Kibana, BigData Security exposure and expertise in SSL and Data Protection, Cloud hosting and management solutions experience with AWS and Azure, Put solutions around VPC and integrating Cloud and On-premise clusters."

Teaching Experience:
5 years in tutoring and mentoring

Tutoring Approach:
Student frequency level to digesting subject.

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Personal Description:
Hi! I'm Lucy, and I'm currently studying for my biochemistry degree at the University of Sussex. I have a passion for science, and want to share this with others, and hopefully help them with their own studies.
Outside of this, I am very creative. I enjoy playing piano, singing, folding origami and watercolour painting.
Outside of term time I live in the Oxfordshire countryside, and love taking walks around the places that I live.
I also enjoy cooking and creating new recipes.
I hope that you choose to contact me and that we can have a great time working together!

Teaching Experience:
I tutored for 2 years during my A level studies, in which I took biology, chemistry and maths. I have experience tutoring these 3 subjects, especially maths, and am able to tutor all of these to GCSE level, as well as other subjects to lower levels. My tutees have faced great success, one moving from 3rd set to top set for maths within a term of tutoring.

Tutoring Approach:
I like to work with you and your child, getting your feedback and perspective on what is going well, and what I can improve to help your child improve. I believe that transparency is key, and we should be able to keep clear and constructive communication, so that I can best support your child.
I hope that together, we can get the results your child deserves, and let them reach their full potential.

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Personal Description:
Hi I'm an 18 year old political science student at a belgian university and I'm in Cambridge with my mother for the holidays. I'm a sweet and enthousiastic person with a real passion for the french language! I'd be glad to share some of my favourite french books or movies with you so we can talk about it together during our tea break!

Teaching Experience:
I used to regularly help my little cousins with their french and math lessons but I was not paid for it, so this would actually be my first time giving paid lessons. I'm therefore really looking forward to this first experience and have already prepared my tutoring approach. I hope you'll trust me and enjoy sharing this experience with me!

Tutoring Approach:
I will adapt my tutoring approach to the needs of the student, but I suggest participatory lessons. I will explain the lesson of the day during the first half hour and make sure the student has understood it by giving them a fun oral or written exercise to do during the last 20min. It can be a conversation, a story to write, a sequence from a series to translate etc... it could be anything! Of course, I will make sure to meet the student's needs and will pay attention to their personnality to make them feel as comfortable as I can.

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Personal Description:
I am a mother of a child who has dyslexia and I have always supported her overcoming her barriers to learning. We both love reading, getting outside and playing card and board games together.

Teaching Experience:
I have been working in education for almost 30 years. For over a decade, I have previously worked as a teaching assistant supporting individual children, adapting classroom learning to meet their specific needs, both academic and emotional.
I am now a qualified teacher working full time in a local school.

Tutoring Approach:
My passion about children's education has led me to develop a deep understanding of how children learn and how to support children along their learning journey. I believe in a holistic approach and suit my teaching to the needs of each child with adaptive and adjustable methods so that they can achieve to their best potential.

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Personal Description:
As a tutor, I believe in fostering a supportive and engaging learning environment where students feel empowered to explore concepts and ask questions freely. My approach is student-centered, focusing on understanding each student's unique learning style, strengths, and areas for improvement.
I strive to make complex topics accessible by breaking them down into digestible chunks, using real-life examples, analogies, and interactive exercises to reinforce learning. I encourage active participation and critical thinking, guiding students to discover solutions rather than simply providing answers.

Teaching Experience:
I have Two years teaching experience of GCSE level and one year of A level

Tutoring Approach:
I Ask good, open-ended questions. I ask the student questions in order to evaluate a students' understanding

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Personal Description:
I have always been incredibly passionate about learning as much as possible and I want to instil this in others.
I have high scores on my GCSEs and AS Mathematics and I am currently studying Mathematics at University.
I am a very friendly, outgoing person who enjoys teaching thoroughly.

I genuinely love what I do.

Teaching Experience:
I have been teaching since my sister was learning to talk but I first started as a private tutor at age 14. I was lucky enough to teach a class of 30 girls just after I did my GCSEs at age 17, and from there I went on to start my own business.

I worked for myself as a private maths tutor for 3 years before working at London School or Science and Technology and I am now back to private tutoring.

Tutoring Approach:
My teaching style changes depending on every student I face. I would identify as having the facilitator style which is someone who encourages self-learning by asking the student questions rather than telling them the answer.

I also specialise in last minute GCSE revision where I am able to make the subject matter seem much simpler than how it is explained in many schools.

I have done a huge amount of work with ADHD and dyslexic students so I have had to deal with about every behavioural issue there is with the utmost patience and I experience a lot of joy in learning how the students get to the answer.

I have created many lesson plans myself for ages 4-16, which include animated PowerPoints, mainly in maths but I am happy to create them for any subject.

I always begin with a game or a riddle just to get thinking cap on and then we will tackle a subject with an explanation and worked examples.

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Personal Description:
Native French speaker based in London who genuinely enjoys helping people I split my time between my coaching practice and tutoring, and both come down to the same thing: helping people feel more confident in what they're doing.

Teaching Experience:
I've tutored French for several years, working with adults needing workplace fluency and students preparing for exams. I recently helped a Chinese professional in Paris refine his business French - emails, reports, and presentations with noticeable results that impressed his colleagues and his management.

Tutoring Approach:
I tailor every session to what you actually need. Whether it's exam prep, conversational confidence, or polishing your professional French, we'll focus on practical progress. As a stress management coach, I know how to keep things relaxed and judgment-free whilst staying focused on results

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