Russell

I am 44 years old, married, originally from Kent and have lived in London for almost twenty years. I am looking for a small number of regular tutees. Rather than setting a particular radius from home, I am looking to tutor in the Colliers Wood, Wimbledon and Morden areas, or anywhere along the Northern Line from Elephant and Castle to Morden.
I am happy to tutor on a one-to-one basis at the price advertised, or small groups of two or three for an extra £10 per hour per student. I would prefer Monday or Tuesday evenings, but am happy to discuss this. I am also keen to offer additional sessions during half-terms and holidays for the same students or others.

Tutoring Experience

I have been teaching science, mainly Physics, for over fifteen years and have taught A-Level Physics in all of those years and GCSE Physics in most of them. I currently teach OCR Physics A, but have recent experience of OCR Physics B, have previously taught AQA and am familiar with EdExcel. I teach AQA at GCSE level and have recently taught OCR at GCSE Level. I have taught in Hackney and Kilburn across the entire ability range and have sent students from less affluent backgrounds to Cambridge, Imperial and other prestigious universities. I have also supported students with successful applications for Arkwright Scholarships. Overall, my classes have had excellent results with high numbers of A*-B grades and very, very low dropout rates. In the past four years, only one student has dropped my course, and none have been left with U-grades.

Tutoring Approach

Firstly, I am very clear that being good at Physics and getting a good grade in a Physics exam are not quite the same thing. For Year 12 students, I focus on Physics, and for Year 13s I focus on Physics exams. The fundamentals are to develop the maths skills necessary to begin representing ideas mathematically and thereby tackle exam questions. Once those skills are in place, it is necessary for students to spend a good deal of their own time doing practice papers, so I expect all students to keep a record of each test they have done, marked and corrected, then to show them to me too. At this stage, I review a student’s work and correct/improve it either through correcting minor misconceptions, re-teaching a topic or helping them improve their methodology.

Physics is a skills-based subject but is assessed via content, so I have developed a parallel system of assessment which focuses on skills within categories of numeracy, literacy and conceptual thinking in order to ensure students improve in all areas. I use this with students to ensure they don’t focus only on questions they are already good at and thereby become strong all-round learners.