Oliver Hale

As someone with 3 years of tutoring experience and 2 more years as the tutee I know the importance of having a fun yet structured lesson to build ability in maths, and so I believe I can provide a tailored and engaging lesson to my students through the mediums I have tested and been subject to over those 5 years. During teaching I like to use a range of different strategies to help build knowledge and confidence in maths. My favourite is the guided walkthrough of a question picked to both be doable but also challenging to the student. During this I will go through each step slowly to ensure proper understanding of each of my steps (ensuring clean presentation throughout to help build healthy habits). I will then give the student a practice question of similar calibre to test understanding. This will help me to asses areas of difficulty for the student and to correct them through a similar but slightly slower way. This is the same method I used at GCSE level but with YouTube videos instead of a tutor explaining it. Another teaching method I like is the correction method which involves me writing a method for answering a question but leaving a common mistake in my working for the student to then assess identify and correct what I did wrong, which builds further understanding of different ways that answers can go wrong and how to avoid them. I will try to do topics and content from the student's homework or recent classes, but if they find it easy or there is something else they are working towards such as the 11+ test or an end of year exam, then I can use personal judgement to choose hard topics or things I know need working on by either knowledge of the student or contact with their teacher or parent to ensure lessons are as targeted and useful as they can be for the student to make the most of their time with me.