Todd - Newcastle upon Tyne tutor






Information About Todd:


Personal Description:

I'm a 21-year-old student at Newcastle University and I'm currently in my second year of a medicine degree (MBBS). I am an enthusiastic and keen learner and these qualities are reflected in my teaching, which I have always enjoyed alongside my work and studies.

Before deciding that I wanted to become a doctor I started a mathematics degree at Bath University but left the course after the first semester to return to my home town of Sheffield and work in early 2006. Alongside my full-time job in administration at the Sheffield Children's Hospital I started tutoring GCSE and A-Level students in mathematics and science and continued to do so until starting my current degree course last year.

I am also self-taught in HTML and BASIC programming and have designed various programs and tools in my past employment as well as my leisure time. More about me, including a full list of my qualifications, experience and the tuition I offer, can be found on my website which is listed on Google when you search for my name.



Teaching Experience:

I occasionally taught GCSE and A-Level students in mathematics and science for nearly two years before beginning my current degree course in medicine last year. Most of my students were taking mathematics at GCSE since mathematics is the subject in which I am most highly qualified; this often involved trying to inspire enthusiasm and confidence in the subject as much as actual teaching due to it being so widely disliked as a subject!

During this time I also took an intensive Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course which gave me a good range of transferable teaching skills.



Tutoring Approach:

I try to take a very individual-focussed approach to my tuition and will choose the approach that seems to best suit the student and their particular aims. For some students, purely problem-based classes are the most beneficial in which we work through various questions and exercises that the student has been set by the school tutors and work towards increasing the student's confidence in tackling such problems without supervision. I will also set tasks myself which I will either go through with the student or leave with them as light homework before the next session.

If a student is finding a range of aspects of their course difficult then I will devise a more structured approach to teaching, working closely with the course syllabus and planning a series of sessions around the sorts of areas the student finds most challenging. I have also previously used my knowledge of computer programming to design simple applications for students to use at home to further help their learning, such as interactive flash cards or step-by-step algorithms for solving particular types of mathematical problems.

In any case I find it important to have a good relationship with my students since private tuition can often feel a bit overwhelming for them, particularly if all they've only ever been taught in large groups in state schools. Being younger than most of the wider teaching community however, I am generally found less intimidating to students than school tutors! I have a friendly and enthusiastic manner in my teaching and believe that private tuition should be about empowering students rather than simply pointing out what they don't know.



Map showing Todd's location

Qualifications:

  • Mathematics and Further Mathematics A-Levels - both Grade A
  • Physics and Chemistry A-Levels - both Grade A
  • TEFL intensive 20-hour course qualification

Further Information:

Availability:  Weekends / Weekdays (evenings)
Types of Tutoring:   Travels to you
References Supplied?   Yes
Current DBS/CRB Check?   Yes