Ronit Mendonca

My name is Ronit. I’m a former pupil of St Paul’s School and now study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at University College London. I tutor Maths, Economics, English, History and Politics at 11+, GCSE and A-Level. I achieved five A*s at A-Level, in Economics (91%), Mathematics (90%), History (89%), Politics (87%) and my EPQ (100%, on trade economics), alongside eleven grade 9s at GCSE.

At St Paul’s I earned a dual academic scholarship, the school’s highest academic honour, alongside awards including the Morgan Prize for Politics (2026), the Lidwell Prize for Extended Projects (2026), the Barnett Prize for Economics (2025), and subject prizes in History, English Literature and Electronics Engineering (2024). I was also a Prefect, House Captain, President of the History Society, Business and Finance Editor of the school magazine and a committee member of the Politics and Economics Society.

Alongside my studies, I have several years of tutoring experience. From 2023 to 2026 I was a Colet Mentor at St Paul’s, teaching mathematics from KS2 to GCSE level to students in Somalia and at surrounding schools. In 2024 I volunteered at the Barnes Children’s Literature Festival, the UK’s largest dedicated children’s literature festival, encouraging children to read, and in 2025 I tutored GCSE Mathematics at Christ’s School, working with students who were finding the subject difficult.

My approach is rooted in my own experience as a student. In essay-based subjects, I know how frustrating it is to work hard without understanding where marks are being lost. So I focus less on memorising content or model answers, and more on teaching students how to build a compelling argument for any question. That shift took me from struggling with Economics, History and Politics essays to writing them confidently at A* level, by mastering the core skills.

My approach to Mathematics is similar. Students make the greatest progress when they understand why a method works, rather than simply memorising a procedure. At Christ’s School I worked with a GCSE student who was struggling with coordinate geometry. She had learnt a process without the concepts behind it, so unfamiliar questions quickly became difficult. We went back to the underlying ideas and worked through why each step made sense, and once those gaps were closed she became much more confident tackling unfamiliar questions on her own. Experiences like this have convinced me that difficulty at school usually comes from gaps in understanding rather than ability.

At Mayfair Scholars, I want every student to leave each lesson having mastered the core skills of a topic, with the structure, understanding and confidence to recognise what a question is really asking, adapt what they know, and perform at the level they are capable of.