Stephen

I've always loved Maths -- right from being a kid, when I used to work out sums based on the hymn numbers in church!

And I love coming up with new ways of thinking about mathematical ideas -- how they can be communicated, how they can be assessed. I think it's vital to understand why Maths works, not just how it works (even though it's generally the how that enables students to pass exams).

Besides loving my subject, I enjoy music (nowadays I choose the hymn numbers at church!) and spending time with my family.

Tutoring Experience

I studied Part I Maths and Part II Education at Cambridge University, graduating in 1989. Since then I've been a secondary Maths teacher and school leader, spending over 20 years in Headship. Unusually, throughout my time as a Head, I kept teaching Maths -- sometimes a GCSE class, most recently 'A'-level Further Maths classes, and prepping students for Oxbridge entry. For many years I was a lead writer (and marker) for the national Key Stage 3 Maths tests, giving me an invaluable insight into how best examiners can assess, and students can demonstrate, their mathematical understanding.

Tutoring Approach

1 Maths
Teaching students "mathematical recipes" is, in my view, not always the best approach.

For example, in the 1970s I was taught to "borrow 10" when necessary in subtractions. But I never understood how on earth the method worked -- it was just a series of instructions I had to learn and follow. Much better to teach for understanding, so that the idea can be easily applied in different contexts. And that principle applies to mathematical ideas at all levels, from the "four operations" up!

I also believe in making sure students get the "big picture". Subtraction is important partly because it's the inverse of addition; it's one of the first times students come across this idea of inverses, which is important across vast swathes of mathematics. (You can't solve a Pythagoras' Theorem problem without understanding the inverse of squaring...).

Having loved Maths, and taught it, for so long, I am passionate about helping students understand those connections, that big picture, the "why" as well as the "how".

2 Teaching
All teaching is fundamentally about relationships. Sometimes the best mathematicians are not the best teachers, because they don't connect as well with their students. The best teachers have that connection; they take time to understand their students, to see where the misconceptions lie, to gently unpick them and patiently put them back together again. Even when a student is struggling with a concept, they should still feel valued as a person -- and perhaps that's even more true in Maths than it is in other subjects.