James T

Over my teaching career I have taught Geography lessons from year 7 to A-level, tutored GCSE Maths and Geography students in the lead up to their exams. My ability to plan and deliver creative and substantial lessons with clear and simulating objectives strengthened during the past year, culminating in me achieving a Distinction overall. During my undergraduate degree I tutored GCSE Maths and Geography students and prepared them for their exam. I have a 2:1 in Geography from Newcastle University, an A in A-level Economics and a B in A-level Maths. I will strive for success in all my tutoring sessions and encourage my students to strive for success in their academic life. In my tutoring lessons I will strive to improve students attainment in the subject, improving their knowledge of topics, improve students subject specific skills and exam technique. from. I believe that if a student is enjoying their lesson, they will learn more, take more out of it and enjoy the subject more. Having worked with children for the past year and had experience with students over the past few years I understand that there is a huge amount of responsibility on tutors to not only teach their students, but also look after their wellbeing. I have had safeguarding training throughout this year and have taught lessons in PSHE about a variety of topics. this experience has help me to be aware of potential safeguarding and wellbeing issues when dealing with students. I recently undertook a training day about tutoring students online with a focus on safeguarding the students' wellbeing.

I have a range of experience of teaching students inside and outside the classroom. As discussed above I have taught Geography classes from year 7 up to and including A-level, as well as tutoring year 11 students in Geography and Maths a several different schools. During my time a North Gosforth School I was given the responsibility to run revision classes for year 11 students preparing to sit their GCSE Geography exams. I needed to therefore design challenging, motivational and well-paced lessons. I used a range of different activities to engaged these students including quizzing programmes and applications to access specific topics the students were struggling with. this meant that I was able to highlight different students’ strengths and weaknesses and was better able to set targets and learning objectives for each student which could change from lesson to lesson. I found the use of assessments to monitor and record students’ progress was vital to evaluating, planning and delivering worthwhile sessions. During my undergraduate degree I was employed by Dukes Secondary School in Ashington as a Maths tutor for students sitting GCSEs. I have seen first-hand the benefits professional, well planned, impactful tutoring can have on an individual pupil. Of the five people I tutored all improved their predicted results by at least one grade. Each student is an individual and therefore needs individual lessons. I believe the best way to tutor students is in an enjoyable and personalised lesson. To achieve this result, I like to get to know my students and tailor the learning to suit their needs and interests. I will take the time to focus in on specific topics, techniques and strategies that my students need help on and use differing and creative methods to improve their knowledge, skills and exam technique in these areas.

Planning and preparation of key to a successful lesson. Before each of my lessons a plan out the activities we are going to do during the lessons and how long each activity will take. To start this planning process I ask myself what do I want the student to learn from this lesson and then how will we get there. The more preparation you do before a tutoring lesson the be the lesson will be for the students and the teacher. I like to structure my lesson into three main parts: Starter, Main and Plenary. The starter is a time for the student to become engaged in the topic and reflect over what they have previously learned about the topic. This should be an engaging hook into the lesson. The main part of the lesson is where new ideas are spoken about and learn. This will be the majority of the lesson and should be interesting and exciting so that the students is full engaged and involved in their learning. Finally, the plenary is where the lesson is wrapped up and the learning that has taken place is reviewed and cemented. Each lesson that I deliver with be carefully planned out and prepared to me the needs of the individual student I am tutoring.

I have had lots of experience with different exam boards. With Geography I have used AQA, Edexcel and had some experience with WJEC. Similarly with Maths I have tutored student for the AQA exam and finally I have used the Pre-University board for Economics. This wide range of different exam boards means that I understand the different exams papers that students will be sitting and I can adapted to different exam boards I have experience in several different ones.

One of my biggest successes as a tutor was when I was tutoring students that had failed their GCSE Maths in Dukes secondary school. The students were now in Year 12 and had to resit their Maths exams. All the students that I tutored improved that grade by a least 1 grade and passed their GCSE Maths.