Michael

Over the last 25 years I have regularly given private tuition in Maths to GCSE, A Level and Oxbridge entrance. I take pride in bringing about big improvements in a short space of time, for example, I recently improved a student's performance in AS Core 1 Maths from C to A in 8 lessons. I retired in August, 2011, and so I am flexible as to the timings of lessons. I am still physically (e.g. I play singles tennis and go mountain climbing regularly) and mentally (e.g. I am now taking Russian to degree level and do Maths Olympiad problems for fun) vigorous.

Tutoring Experience

I was full-time Maths Teacher and Head of Further Maths at Shrewsbury Sixth Form College for 25 years. I taught mainly A Level, Further Maths A Level and Oxbridge Entrance, especially Step 1,2 and 3, but in some years I taught GCSE retake groups. I derived as much satisfaction from giving confidence to weaker students as I did from inspiring gifted students to do creative maths.

Tutoring Approach

Initially I identify the strengths and weaknesses (these could relate to a general approach to learning Maths or to specific topics within a unit) of the student and structure the lessons accordingly. The three most important aspects of a lesson are: clarity of explanation, maximum efficiency of any method taught and repeated application of the method until complete mastery is achieved (the latter being the well-tried Japanese method).