Debra

Meet Debra

5.0 (1) Advanced SEN specialist · Online · In person · West Wickham

Beyond my professional background, I bring lived experience as a parent of children with additional needs — autism, ADHD, OCD and severe anxiety within my own family.

Supports
  • Study and revision
  • Organisation and focus
  • Writing and essays
Teaches
  • Maths
  • English
  • English Literature
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Free times

Book a free 20-minute call with Debra. Pick a day to see when Debra is free.

UK time

Friday 6 November · 13 free times

  • 12:30
  • 13:00
  • 13:30
  • 14:00
  • 14:30
  • 15:00
  • 15:30
  • 16:00
  • 16:30
  • 17:00
  • 17:30
  • 18:00
  • 18:30
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Prices

+£15 travel fee for each in-person session

About Debra

My experience with special educational needs

I'm a qualified teacher of over twenty years, and most of my work now is with children who aren't in school, or who find school very hard. I've taught in a specialist DLD setting, in a special school for autistic pupils, and 1:1 in a mainstream secondary. I now teach children at home under EOTAS packages and Local Authority contracts.

I work a lot with autism, ADHD and PDA profiles, and with anxiety, including EBSA, OCD and selective mutism, all of which I've trained in. If your child has had a hard time with school or with previous tutors, I won't rush them. Nothing much gets learned until a child trusts the person teaching them, so that's where I start.

I use structured programmes where they help: Toe by Toe for reading, Talkabout for friendship skills, alongside precision teaching and visual scaffolding. I adapt work so processing and memory demands don't stop a child showing what they know.

Lots of children hate getting things wrong. My lessons make being wrong unremarkable.

A bit about me

Beyond my professional background, I bring lived experience as a parent of children with additional needs — autism, ADHD, OCD and severe anxiety within my own family. I've had to be tenacious in securing the right support for my sons, including a judicial review and multiple Ombudsman decisions against my local authority, and I spent two and a half years with a son out of education while searching for the right school. Through years of trial and error, I've learned real, practical strategies for managing extreme anxiety, which I bring into how I work with anxious learners — and I understand this system from the parent's side, not just the professional one. That experience has taught me not to take resistance personally and to read what's behind a child's behaviour rather than the behaviour itself. I also recognise that a child's ability isn't always shown in conventional ways, and I look for what a child can do rather than marking them down for how they demonstrate it.

My teaching philosophy

Before anything else, I work on the relationship. No subject learning happens until a student trusts the person teaching them, and with children who've had a bad time at school that can take a while. I'm comfortable with that, and I don't push.

I never prepare resources too far in advance, as each lesson shapes the next. With anxious and demand-avoidant students that matters, because I can follow where they are on the day rather than arriving with a plan they have to comply with.

I follow interests. Most students will engage with something they care about long before they'll engage with a worksheet, and a great deal can be taught through the thing they already love. I make full use of multimedia.

I think teaching skills matter as much as content. Content a student can often pick up alone, but the skills to use it well aren't easy to self teach. Where exams are involved, I teach technique the way examiners actually mark papers, so students know what earns marks and why.

Subjects and levels 11 subjects, Primary to A-Level
Primary Secondary GCSE Foundational level GCSE Higher level A-Level University Functional Skills
Maths
English
English Literature
English Language
History
Geography
Politics
Business Studies
French
Primary
Science
  • Primary
    • Maths
    • English
    • English Literature
    • English Language
    • History
    • French
    • Primary
    • Science
  • Secondary
    • Maths
    • English
    • English Literature
    • English Language
    • History
    • Geography
    • French
    • Science
  • GCSE Foundational level
    • English
    • English Literature
    • English Language
    • History
    • Geography
    • Politics
    • French
  • GCSE Higher level
    • English
    • English Literature
    • English Language
    • History
    • Geography
    • Politics
    • Business Studies
    • French
  • A-Level
    • History
    • French
Teaching qualifications 23 qualifications
  • Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)
  • Teacher Training Outside the UK
  • Training in Supporting Learners with Dyscalculia
  • Autism Education Trust (AET) Tier 2/3 or other advanced Autism training
  • Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) Training (General)

Reviews

1 review

  • Martin Nissim
    Debra tutored our son, Luca, during primary school, and we cannot recommend her highly enough. Through weekly one-to-one lessons, she helped raise his academic standard in Maths, English, writing and verbal/non-verbal reasoning in preparation for the highly competitive 11+ and grammar-school entrance exams. Debra was patient, encouraging and particularly good at understanding how to get the best out of Luca. She helped build his confidence and ability and encouraged him to become a more focused and independent learner. The longer-term results speak for themselves. Luca went on to achieve A*, A* and A in Physics, Maths and Chemistry at A-level and is now starting a Physics degree at the University of Manchester. We have no doubt that the strong educational foundations Debra helped to establish during those formative years played an important part in the student he has become. She genuinely cares about the children she teaches and understands their individual personalities and abilities. We would wholeheartedly recommend Debra as a dedicated and effective tutor who can make a lasting difference to a child’s education.