Neha Jha

I teach maths to primary and lower-secondary students, from Year 1 through to Year 9, including SATs preparation. I tutor both online and in person.
Before anything else, I find out where a student actually is, rather than where the year group says they should be. The first lesson is mostly a relaxed set of questions across different topics, so I can see which ideas are solid and which are shaky, and so we can get to know each other. After that every lesson follows the same shape: a short warm-up on something we have already covered, so the student starts on a win; one new idea worked through slowly together; then practice where I step back bit by bit until they are doing it alone. We finish with two or three questions they answer without any help from me, so we can both see that it has landed. I don't hand over answers. I ask questions until the student spots the step where it went wrong themselves, because that is what actually sticks. My background is in pharmacy. For a year and a half my job was answering questions from members of the public, pharmacists and doctors, which meant taking something technical and explaining it in whichever way made sense to the person asking. I also trained new colleagues and wrote the step-by-step guides they learned from, and I have helped younger members of my family with their maths for years. I am patient, I don't get frustrated, and I am happy to go over something as many times as it takes.