Thomas B

I am a Teacher of science and currently work at a school ranked outstanding by Ofsted. My professional qualifications include: PGCE Secondary Science. BSc Sport Science Honours degree from Liverpool John Moores University specialising in muscle physiology and biochemistry. MSc Strength and Conditioning from Liverpool John Moores University specialising in muscle physiology and biomechanics. During my time at school and university I developed a passion for science and the scientific method. I wanted to pass that passion onto young people as they begin their journey and inspire them to follow their passion to be successful as I did. My experience in the school environment has provided me experience of working with pupils of all abilities. It has also helped me develop positive relationships with my pupils. I pride myself on building a learning environment that promotes thought exploration and the idea that making mistakes is part of the learning process. It is vitally important that as a teacher I build student confidence and resilience so that they make sufficient progress. Lastly, I attend regular CPD sessions to ensure that I am up to date with current teaching an learning research so that I am continuously improving my teaching ability; I pride myself on self improvement and my own personal development.

I have taught Biology, Chemistry and Physics to GCSE level for the past 2 years. I have experience in teaching students of all abilities from high ability to SEND. This experience allows me to adapt my teaching to ensure that all students reach the same end point with sufficient challenge and support to their needs. I am up to date with the new grade 9-1 GCSE specification.

Once we have agreed days and times for our lessons, I will send you a lesson reservation which you will need to accept. I will need; a copy of any past papers examinations, a copy of classwork. This needs to be sent in workspaces on Tutorspot, after you have accepted the lesson reservation, and then I send you an assessment for the student to complete before the first lesson.This will allow me to generate an individual RAG tracker. This RAG tracker spreadsheet will have topics in line with the GCSE specification. I will then use the assessment to RAG the pupils knowledge as red, amber and green. The lessons will focus on red topics first. Homework will focus on green topics to ensure the student is retrieving content. Lessons are one to one, and take place in the Tutorspot online classroom. You will have access to the classroom once you have accepted the lesson reservation, and you can enter a few minutes before each lesson. the lessons will follow a similar format to that in school. 1. A retrieval starter to ensure pupils are remembering information from previous lessons, this will help the student retain information over time. 2. learning new content. The pupil will complete a progress check after each success criterion being taught. This allows me to assess understanding and address misconceptions on the spot. 3. Apply the learning to a new context. The pupil will complete an exam style question based on the content taught. There will be a key focus on command words, recognising these in exam questions is key as this where students lose marks. 4. Self reflection and feedback. With my guidance, the pupil will self-assess their work. This is where students will begin to recognise trends throughout mark schemes. At the end of every topic taught there will be an assessment set as homework. This all me to assess the progress made by each pupil. I will then input assessment data into the RAG tracker and this will be shared with parents/carers so they can see the progress made by their child.