Jane

My degree from the University of Exeter was in ecological biology, and I wanted to be a marine biologist. However having experienced research during a gap year and summer jobs, I decided that my passion was for sharing my love of how science can help us to understand our planet. I went to the University of Cambridge for my PGCE. I have been teaching for over 30 years, and have worked as an examiner in a variety of roles for most of that time. My interest in education is widespread. I spent most of last summer editing the HarperCollins i-A level Biology textbook and teachers guide for scientific accuracy, and the autumn writing two chapters for the new Oxford Biology Primer on Evolution (for 16 to 19 year olds).

Tutoring Experience

I have taught in a wide variety of schools and colleges in both the state and private sector. These have included Alton College, which became designated a Beacon College for the teaching of science while I was there. I am currently a supply teacher for Dorset schools.
I have also been a voluntary youth worker and children's worker.
I wrote A level exam questions for AQA for about 15 years, marked for AQA and University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate during the same period, and have been marking GCSEs for almost 10 years. I have also written revision material for the BBC Bitesize and Kerboodle (Oxford University Press) websites.

Tutoring Approach

My experiences in both writing exams and marking them have convinced me that exam technique is key to doing well: my experiences as a private tutor have convinced me that most teachers do not realise quite how crucial it can be!

My focus when I tutor is to build confidence by isolating problems and then helping the tutee to connect all the various facts (which they usually know) into a meaningful story. We work on building cross-connections between topics to deepen understanding. And I show them how to use past papers and markschemes online in order to consolidate their understanding and also learn how to focus in on the points that the examiner is looking for in an answer to a question.