Melanie

Having never lost my passion for teaching and learning over the last 30 years, or my delight in watching students develop, I have now decided to channel my skills into one-to-one learning. I want to continue enjoying and improving my interactions with students and therefore I do not intend filling my day with lessons; I will balance my time for reflection and planning to tailor make each lesson to fit the individual.
I have been very fortunate that my chosen occupation has also allowed me to travel with my family. We have lived and taught in Botswana, Spain and Malawi over a period of 16 years; I believe this experience has turned me into a well-rounded and extremely adaptable person; these are attributes that I make good use of in a classroom environment.

Tutoring Experience

I have a BSC (Honours) in Maths from Sheffield University and a PGCE from Sheffield Hallam. I have approximately 30 years of Maths teaching experience which has stretched over all year groups from 7 to 13, in UK and international schools. I have taught the full ability range at GCSE including the AQA Further Maths course. At A level I have taught Pure, Statistics and Mechanics, and I have covered Pure and Statistics into the Further Maths modules.
I was HoD for 12 years in the following schools:
www.yarmschool.org
www.saints.mw
www.cambridghehouse.es
For reinforcement outside of the classroom I have: worked with learning support groups, run Maths clinics, organised iGCSE and A level Maths weekends and given individual face to face tuition. I have also been involved with stretching the most able students outside of the classroom via UKMT challenges and Maths Inspiration lectures.

Tutoring Approach

The majority of my tuition work revolves around building mathematical confidence in children of a variety of ages. I aim to create an ‘I can do’ attitude, as well as a willingness to take risks and a pride in their own discovery: I believe these lead to an enjoyment of Maths and in turn success.

During lockdown, I was suddenly delivering a full timetable of lessons on-line and so I had to quickly adapt to a new classroom environment. In a short period of time, I developed an interactive and varied approach with my students using the following: Google Classroom, Jamboard, Meets, Hangouts, Forms, Slides, Smart notebook, Bitpaper, Kahoot quizzes, Desmos and Geogebra as well as producing my own video demonstrations. My aim is to fully engage students in their on-line learning experience.