Mathskat

About Me

I am a maths and ICT teacher, with a background in education and IT training. I have lots of experience teaching maths and literacy to children, young people and adults. In addition to my tutoring experience, I have taught adults and teenagers in colleges, I have taught children in a school in Thailand and I have trained many people in computer skills. I am friendly, patient and I enjoy teaching because I love helping people to learn.

I started teaching 18 years ago at a further education college, in which I taught a range of maths courses, from basic numeracy to GCSE. I also taught in the college maths workshop, which involved working one-to-one with any students who wanted extra help with maths. I worked as a software engineer and part of this job was to train customers in using the software. I later taught maths and ICT to teenagers and adults in Preston College. Currently, I work in a well respected local college, teaching GCSE and Functional Skills maths to teenagers, and Functional Skills Maths and ICT to work-based learners. I am also involved in supporting the learning of students who have learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, ADHD, Asberger's Syndrome and/or physical disabilities.

I have taught mathes to students at a variety of levels: GCSE and Key Stages 1 to 4, as well as successful preparation for 11+ entrance examinations, working on maths, English and verbal reasoning. I have helped adult students to pass Level 2 mathematics courses such as GCSE (Foundation and Higher), Functional Skills and ALAN exams. Last year, I started working with a 7 year old girl who had achieved Level 1 at the end of Year 2. At the end of Year 3, she had progressed to Level 3B and now says that numeracy is her favourite subject. Another of my students was Level 3A at the end of Year 4 when I began tutoring her, and she just achieved Level 5C in her end of Year 6 SATS Maths test. Other students in Year 7 and Year 9 have been moved up a set in mathematics. The pass rate of my GCSE students is currently 100%!

At Age Concern, I set up an computer skills workshop for older people: my learners often bring their own laptops or they have use the laptops provided and I teach them whatever they want to learn. Topics I teach include using the internet, email, finding information, online shopping, downloading photographs, organising files, writing documents and making posters, powerpoint presentations as well as general issues, such basic computer care, security and how to respond to messages that pop up. I have also set up internet in my learners' homes after helping them to chose an internet provider and package.

My approach to tutoring is student centred in terms of what they want to learn and how they want to learn. I spend time at the start finding out how my student likes to learn, what works for them. I use a variety of teaching methods depending on the preferred learning style of the student. My teaching style is lively and enthusiastic as I believe that learning is most effective if it is fun, and I always develop good, friendly communication with my learners. I think that building confidence and quelling fears are important parts of the teaching and learning process; these are aspects that influence my approach. I have not always found learning to be easy so I have empathy with my students, I can usually anticipate which areas they will find difficult and so I am sensitive to how they may feel when the learning is hard. I encourage my students to be honest and give me feedback to let me know if they are following my explanations.



Subjects/Levels

ICT - Adult Intro
ICT - General
ICT - Functional Skills
Maths - GCSE
Maths - Key Stages 1 to 4 (KS1-4)
Maths - Adult Numeracy
Maths - Common Entrance 11+
Maths - Functional Skills