Nicola

I am a calm and confident individual, and have a very supportive approach to teaching.

I have been a qualified teacher since 2013, this has allowed me to develop a great variety of teaching styles and methods to suit all ages and abilities of students. I also pride myself on good working relationships with my pupils.

Since 2013 I have had a variety of private tutoring jobs, both long term (longest is 5 years) and short exam prep jobs.

I am very flexible and work around your time frames.

I used to be an elite triathlete, combining this with my education was tricky but I persevered and ended up succeeding in education. I can sympathize well with students that are trying to have a sports life, social life etc along side their studying.
I myself can discuss with the students the importance of hard work, that it may not always appear it is 'working' at the time, but it will show in their results and they will be proud.

I studied sports science and biology at university, and my determination led to me graduating with first class honors.
I use this motivation and drive to help my students achieve the best that they can.

Tutoring Experience

I have been qualified as a science teacher since 2013, achieving excellent grades throughout my observations, always good or outstanding.

I have worked in 2 schools in my career.
-A very large state school (1800+) students; working with years 7-13 of all abilities and SEND students.
-My current school is a much more 'community' state school, but I am continuing to teach all abilities of students including gifted and talented and SEND students.

Tutoring Approach

I like to make my lessons as fun and exciting for the students as possible. It is important to me that the students understand why they are learning, as in how it can help them in the future. I hate death by power point lessons, and aim for my private lessons to be more discussion based to enable student interest to bloom.
Where possible I include practical activities in my lessons to help enforce learning.

When it comes to private tutoring lessons I use a variety of techniques, each tailored to the students I am teaching. I use text books, mini whiteboards, flash cards etc. I also make a lot of notes myself as I tutor to enable me to provide additional notes for students if they require after the sessions. With online tutoring I also often use some power points to support my lessons where required.

Depending on the students and parents/ carers requirements I can set homework for the students which will be fully marked and discussed in the following session. I also can provided a report after each session or block of sessions to parents/ carers if required for their child's progress.

I have a very calm manner when I am teaching, and my students l know that it's ok to make mistakes, that its am important part of learning and that they will get there in the end.

With the amount of home learning and lockdowns our students have had in the last few years, I have found a great lack of confidence has occurred in our students, as well as the expected gaps in knowledge. I am flexible in lessons to make sure the students are supported in their areas of weakness, never feeling the risk of judgement, laughing or critique. We build on mistakes, I would much rather a student tell me an incorrect answer so we can build from there, than stay quiet and simply nod while thinking an incorrect answer.

Parents/ carers are welcome to be in the sessions if they wish, or leave myself and the student to the lesson, whichever they prefer.