Matthew

I have been a teacher for twelve years now. I am extremely passionate about teaching primary school children, especially when working 1 to 1 with a pupil or in small groups. I can build a strong rapport with children and can plan for a child's particular learning needs. I bring enthusiasm and dedication to my work and have high expectations of every pupil that I teach. I enable children to flourish in the environment that they work in and I work extremely hard to develop their confidence and self-esteem, which might hold them back in reaching their full potential. I do tutor outside of school hours as I still work in schools during the day. I am available Monday to Thursday between 4.15 and 8pm.

Tutoring Experience

Since qualifying in 2011, I have got a good breath of experience across Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. I have taught in Year 6 for three years; Year 4 for three years; Year 3 for two years; Year 5 for two years and Year 2 for two years. I have worked in schools across Birmingham and Sandwell and also a three-form entry school in Swindon. I have an excellent knowledge of the curriculum in all subject areas and delivered Maths training to other schools in a Multi Academy Trust and I have been a Maths Leader in two schools. In terms of tutoring, I have tutored children in Sutton Coldfield and Four Oaks over the past five years. As well as this, I have tutored Year 6 in previous schools with Maths and Reading in preparation with their SATs, either in breakfast clubs or after school. I have achieved excellent past SATs results, with my best achievements being in maths with 97% of children reaching the expected standard, 91% of children achieving the expected standard in grammar, spelling, punctuation and writing and 79% of children achieving the expected standard in Reading. My high percentage of progress and attainment is consistent. I have a proven track record of making accelerated progress with children in a very short space of time.

Tutoring Approach

My approach to successful teaching is to really understand the child. What are their interests? What makes them 'tick'? I can use concrete resources for maths to enable children to understand the process and to explain their thinking. As well as this, I like to use technology with tablets and laptops and make learning interactive and fun. Learning timestables in the Maths curriculum is so important and I used different strategies through exploring relationships and patterns, songs, handy tricks and tips to enable rapid recall of facts. In reading, I use many different strategies to improve fluency such as echo reading and time challenges. I look carefully at question types and unpick language from good quality text by looking at retrieval of information, inference, word meaning, prediction, summarising and author intent. I use different grammar techniques when I teach writing. I teach the grammar skills explicitly to begin with and then use these in an extended piece of writing to show progress. I teach handwriting using Kinetic letters which teaches correct letter and number formation. For spelling, I use a range of interactive online resources and this aids the learning of spelling rules and understanding words in context. As well as this, I am phonics-trained and I use the Little Wandle Phonics scheme.

It is my belief that children should be able to challenge themselves, work collaboratively, show contemplation and reflect upon their learning. Children need to understand the purpose of why they are learning what they are being taught. I enable children to solve problems and challenge their thinking. Also, I enjoy giving children the opportunities to show their own creativity.