Adam

I spent three years as a Physics teacher (and Head of Year) at a very reputable state grammar school in Warwickshire. However, in May 2015, an opportunity came up for me to work in an independent school much closer to home. I am very ambitious and am looking to progress my career in education so I can eventually become a member of senior management and possibly even a headmaster. Outside my career in Physics teaching, I am an organist at my local church, having played there for the first time when I was fourteen. This is something I have also brought to my new school, and I have been fortunate enough to play in Worcester Cathedral on a couple of occasions so far. I am also very keen on flying. I gained a Private Pilot's Licence (PPL) in 2012 and have just under 270 hours of flying experience. I don't get to do this as often as I'd like owing to the somewhat fickle weather conditions that we consistently experience. I also play various sports but nothing to a professional level. I enjoy playing golf when I can (again, largely weather dependent!), I play badminton twice a week and enjoy running and working out at the gym. I did the Birmingham half marathon last year for the first time which was an amazing experience, and I will certainly be going for it again!

Tutoring Experience

As mentioned above, I held a teaching and pastoral role there for three years, and in September 2015, I took up a new post at an independent school much closer to home. In terms of the actual teaching, I am qualified to teach all three sciences at GCSE, and I have taught the AQA Physics modular GCSE course (P1, P2 & P3) to students of varying abilities. I have also got experience of teaching the C2 and C3 modules from the Chemistry course as well. At my new school, I am teaching the Edexcel iGCSE course which does vary a little in terms of subject content in comparison with GCSE, but is itself still a highly stimulating and rewarding course for students. In my first three years of teaching, I also taught the OCR Advancing Physics A-Level course. However, with the restructuring of A-levels effective from this year, I am now teaching AQA's newly produced A-Level syllabus (specification 7407).

I am also an examiner for the AQA exam board. I examine for the P2 Physics paper (Higher Tier) and have just confirmed my contract to do this again in the summer of this year. This has provided me with excellent insight into the things that are really looked for when answering questions. It has been great to pass on this knowledge to the students I've taught. I think doing this definitely played a part in my 18 GCSE students last year getting 13 A* and 5 A grades between them. Also, in the summer exam series of 2016, I also marked one of the new A-level papers for the new AQA Physics course.

Tutoring Approach

I generally tutor by asking students to have some material that they would like to go over in a session, whether it is going over a test they had in school, helping students revise for a test/exam or giving them assistance with homework, I can tailor my tutoring to suit the circumstances. If given notification by email, I am more than happy to provide resources on a particular topic that we can work through and then I can leave with the student, along with the answers so the students can check their work. Sometimes I like to make use of resources online so access to the internet via a tablet or computer is good, but not essential.