It isn’t just a job. It’s a mission.
I’m an English tutor and former classroom teacher (with 11 years’ in the classroom) helping students understand (and even enjoy) Literature while getting the grades they need.
That matters to me because I was once that student: bright, bookish … and lazy. I assumed potential guaranteed success. It didn’t. I grew up, went back to university in my forties, earned a First Class BA (Hons), and discovered a strong desire to help other people’s children avoid the mistakes I made.
So what’s with the “Upstart” name?
In Shakespeare’s day, a critic called Robert Greene sneered at him as an “Upstart Crow”: a provincial lad with no university education daring to write great poetry. His better-educated contemporary Christopher Marlowe might have been a brawler and a spy, but at least he had a degree. Robert Greene thought Shakespeare should stay in his lane.
But staying in your lane has never been great for literature.
It’s never been great for people either.
I was born abroad, Spanish was my first language, and I grew up happily on a council estate – yet I fell in love with Literature. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd and their world shouldn’t belong to one accent, postcode or school type.
Too many students are told:
– Shakespeare is boring,
– it’s uncool to engage,
– or it’s somehow “posh” culture – as if only posh people are intelligent enough to understand it?
None of that is true. Intelligence doesn’t depend on background. Curiosity doesn’t care about class. And Shakespeare wrote for noisy theatres full of ordinary people, not hushed rooms full of scholars.
They are telling you to stay in your lane.
But if you have ability and are willing to work, you belong in this conversation.
My job is to open up Literature – especially Shakespeare, poetry and classic texts, too – in a way that builds confidence, keeps interest alive, and leads to strong exam results. I don’t care where you live, what your parents do, or what your starting point is. I care about helping you read more deeply, think more clearly, and walk into your exams knowing what exactly you’re doing. And if you learn to love literature along the way, then it really IS mission accomplished!
If that sounds like the kind of support you or your child needs, get in touch.