Sam Thomas

2023 MyTutor Maths Tutor of the Year. My Profile there can be seen on their website.

Since writing my first line of code at 16, I've become fascinated with computers and having completed my MSci in Computer Science and spending some time working in industry, I've returned to academia as a PhD student. During this time, I've been able to take some of the abstract concepts that I discovered in school and university and seen exactly how important they are in real-world applications. I have supported students with Computer Science from KS3 to MSc level and everything in between and am competent with most GCSE and A-level syllabuses, home or international. I have proven teaching experience of my own, self-devised curricula and and I continue developing these skills in my own time.

Although I enjoyed my school computing lessons, I often found it difficult to relate what I was learning back to concrete analogies. From robots to sports to healthcare, computers play a crucial role in everyone's life and this is something that, as a tutor, I tackle head-on. Since joining the platform in November 2020 I have helped some students with immediate goals in the runup to exams and have worked consistently with others for over 2 years, aiding their academic progression over a longer period of time.

One of my main aims as a tutor is to be malleable to each student's needs. To me, this means being aware that coming armed with a set of activities and walking through them in my own way won't be everybody's best way to learn. Sometimes students are fully aware of topics and aspects that they struggle with and, when that's the case, I prepare directly-correlating tasks and activities based on the information you've given me. Other students benefit from a much wider scope of lessons and perhaps need things that challenge them even further than the classroom, whereas others again may want to focus solely on how to answer some of the key exam question-types.

Regardless of which category, or categories, you fall in, I always come armed with a bulk of analogies, activities and questions to challenge everybody. My knowledge of computing goes far beyond the classroom and I'm able to answer questions that even the most inquisitive of students may have.