About
About Ruaridh
A personal, carefully planned approach to English tuition, shaped by almost a decade of teaching children in different educational settings.
I’m Ruaridh MacDermot (pronounced Rory), the founder and teacher behind Lamplit English Studio. I have spent almost a decade teaching children in the UK, China and Southeast Asia, working with students from a wide range of educational and cultural backgrounds.
I hold a first-class degree in Primary Education from Durham University, where I specialised in English, and a master’s degree with Distinction in International Children’s Rights and Development from King’s College London. My experience includes the UK National Curriculum, Cambridge programmes, Montessori education and US curricula.
I founded Lamplit to offer the kind of focused, personalised teaching that can be difficult to provide in a busy classroom.
How I teach
My teaching is shaped by classroom experience and educational research. I build on what the student already knows and introduce new skills at an appropriate pace. Clear explanations, focused practice and constructive feedback help students make progress and become more confident working independently. We discuss what works in their writing and revise it together, giving students time to put feedback into practice.
Routine and fluency in core skills are essential. Secure grammar, vocabulary, reading and sentence construction give students the freedom to express increasingly sophisticated ideas. However, English should never become a list of rules to memorise. I want students to understand how language works, why writers make particular choices and how they can use those choices in their own work.
Every student learns differently, so I adapt the pace, materials and level of support to the individual. Some students need greater structure and repetition; others benefit from more challenge, independence or space to explore their ideas. This reflects research on targeted one-to-one support, which emphasises identifying gaps in understanding and choosing teaching accordingly.
I model how to approach a task, then help students plan, check and reflect on their own work—an approach supported by research on developing independent learners. My aim is not simply to help students complete their next assignment. It is to develop capable, curious and confident readers and writers who understand their strengths and can carry those skills throughout their education and beyond.
Research behind my teaching
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) brings together findings from many studies to help teachers make informed decisions.
Its review of feedback research reports an average of six additional months’ progress compared with pupils receiving usual teaching or other comparison provision. This is an average across the studies reviewed, rather than a measured result or guarantee for Lamplit. The practical principle in my lessons is simple: feedback should explain how to improve, with time to act on it.
Further reading: one-to-one tuition and metacognition and self-regulated learning. These evidence reviews and guidance reports include references to the underlying research.
Free parent consultation
Ready to talk about your child’s English?
Begin with a free parent consultation to discuss your child’s learning, current needs and goals.