If I were going to trust my children into the care of a stranger, I’d like to know a little about them first.  Why do they want to work with my child and what qualifies them to do so?  To that end, here is a little about me and my teaching background.

I have lived in Fleet with my wife and five children for over ten years (although there were only three children when we arrived!).  My wife is Spanish and we often visit her family in Barcelona.  I’m a Christian, I love football and I’m an FA licensed coach. 

I’ve been teaching since 2005, before this working in banking and in a military press office. My view of teaching has always been to radically improve the life chances of those children who for whatever reason find themselves falling behind, to push those with a natural academic flair to achieve their full potential, and to inspire a life-long love of learning in all the children I worked with.  I enjoyed teaching in the secondary sector where I taught Spanish (I still tutor Spanish, you can learn more about that at www.fleetspanishtuition.com) before I followed my heart and moved into the primary sector where I very much enjoyed working as a classteacher with Years 5 and 6.

Teaching is a wonderful and noble profession; I’d encourage anyone who felt called to it to give it a go.  However, it comes at a price - for a long time I’d felt torn between my family’s needs and those of the children in my charge.  In 2016 I decided that the time had finally come to put my wife and own children first and left the state education sector and, alongside my other business, began tutoring small groups.  I still have the privilege of working with children and helping them, but life is a little more balanced and I now get to see more of my own family.

Due to my restricted timetable I currently have to limit my maths tuition to children in years 6, 7 and 8.  In both subjects my lessons are designed to boost confidnece while developing the skills that will have the greatest impact firstly to enable the learner to succeed in school, but more importantly to improve their future life chances.  In my opinion, at this age a child is mature enough to begin to take responsibility for their learning, and it is still early enough to change their perception that they are 'no good' at maths and/or English.  Anyone can clearn the skills needed to achieve success in these two subjects, everyone deserves the chance to do so.

My teaching is based around the following principles:

1. Enjoyment.  Everyone should enjoy learning.  If they aren't enjoying it, I'm not doing it right.  The teacher dictates the weather in the classroom and I always try to teach with a smile on my face because children learn best when they’re enjoying themselves and are engaged.
2. Assessment for learning.  Good teaching is based on strong assessment for learning throughout the session.  This means assessing needs at the start of the session (or before) and using hinge questions throughout to ensure that each individual within the group is getting the best learning possible.  In my teaching this consists of a ‘test’ at the beginning and end of the session to measure progress and inform content for the following session.  Throughout the lesson I believe in the continuous use of individual whiteboards to allow me to monitor success (that way everyone answers every question) and I also give each child green, amber and red cards which they lay out on the desk at all times, ‘traffic lighting’ how they feel about the learning and, if necessary, allowing me to intervene promptly.
3. Thinking.  If you’re not thinking, you’re not really learning.  ‘I don’t get it,’ will always get the response, 'That's not a question!' in my classroom.  It is natural not to understand something new, but unless you can work out what you don’t understand you’ll never become an independent learner.  I expect learners to identify which aspects of the learning they don’t understand and create a question for the group (in the first instance) or me to answer.  What parts do you understand?  What else do you need to know to complete this task?  This technique not only aids the child with the question, but also deepens the learning of the children helping: you don’t really know anything until you can explain it.  Explaining something forces you to draw out the key concepts which, once identified, you can more easily apply elsewhere.  The use of whiteboards allows everyone to attempt this and the simple use of thumbs up, down or horizontal ensures that all are considering all answers offered as well as the question asked.
4. Accelerated learning (A.K.A. over-learning).  As a teacher I have always been an advocate of accelerated learning and this is a key element in most of my tuition sessions.  For those who want to make the best progress, optional homework (5-10 minutes per day) is available to cement new learning.  This includes email support (via parents) if the learner gets stuck.  
5. High expectations.  I have very high expectations of what a child is able do and what they can achieve in the future.  However, much more important than what I believe, is the child’s perception of their own potential.  An invaluable quality in a teacher is the ability to inspire children to believe in themselves.  In my experience, it is when a child believes in both their potential and in your ability to guide them that they make the best progress.