Online maths and physics tutor
Helping students achieve their best grades
This year, I took 2 IB students, 7 A-level students and 11 GCSE students towards their final exams. I also helped a 13 year old pass his maths entrance exam for Shrewsbury School. It was a busy year.
Read the testimonials on this site to see some of the results they achieved.
As an A-level mathematics tutor, I notice that a large number of students beginning their A-level studies have remarkably poor algebra skills. This hard core of students (usually boys) are unable to manipulate fractions, confidently rearrange formulae, work with negative numbers or perform the necessary basic skills to progress in the subject. They repeatedly ask the same questions and try to learn methods by rote because they don’t have the skills to do otherwise. Teaching them can be very frustrating because the same issues are revisited again and again and little progress can be made until they learn basic skills which should have been learned at GCSE.
I should add that this is a minority of students but nevertheless a significant minority. If you recognise yourself in this category, do yourself a big favour and learn to walk before you try to run. Mathematics is a hierarchical subject and progression is made on the basis of having mastered prior skills.
https://www.savemyexams.co.uk/
I highly recommend this resource for mathematics revision. This is the site I use the most. There is much material available for free, including much syllabus-specific material on the new A-level. Many of the mark schemes are available for the subscription of £60 per year. It is regularly updated.
I am always impressed at the people who spend so much time creating such sites. They really do dedicate a lot of time to them.
Another great site is Physicsandmathstutor.com. It is free to use and has a host of GCSE and A-Levél material. Many students use this. You may also view my page where I list various resources here.
I think it is because boys tend to be more laid-back and don’t like to show their working. In recent years, with the introduction of the grades 1 – 9 to replace the letter grades, exams have become more rigorous to combat grade inflation.
More than one in four exam entries by girls aged 16 received top grades of A or 7 and above in this summer’s exams in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, an improvement of half a percentage point to 25.3% compared with last year, while just 18.6% of entries by boys in Year 11 achieved the same grades.
Guardian Education 22nd August 2019
If you failed to achieve the mathematics results you were hoping for, getting bad exam results, all is not lost. Taking a year out can be a good move. There are a number of reasons why students fail to achieve the exam grades they were hoping for. Make time to reflect on where things went wrong. There will be many things that you did right of course, but somehow it didn’t come together. Many people do not perform well under stress and focussing on one subject instead of three for an extended period of time will allow you to assess your strengths and weaknesses and recoup.
When we are young, a year seems like a long time but patience is a virtue and needs to be cultivated these days when everyone expects to be able to get immediate satisfaction. Self-reflection and circumspection are all qualities which are sought by employers.
Download a copy of the syllabus and highlight topics that you are less sure about. Be honest. Then highlight those topics you have some idea about and those you are confident at. Now print out a copy of the formula booklet for your syllabus and have this to hand when you practise.
Do you learn better by watching videos of questions being worked through? If that is the case, then there are some websites with videos of questions by topic for you to browse through and watch. www.examsolutions.net is one such website.
When you are ready to try your hand at some exam questions, you can find many places online where they are sorted by topic or where you can download entire past papers. Of course, with the new maths syllabus, you do have to resort to ‘legacy’ questions once you have exhausted the available ‘new’ material. But as you become familiar with the syllabus, you will be come expert at picking through ‘legacy’ papers and identifying which questions are relevant and which are not.
If you prefer to learn by listening, then podcasts are for you. They cover a very wide range of topics and are suitable for the well-informed novice. Topics include the environment, global warming, particle physics, astronomy, physics education, material physics, fusion energy and medical advances.
Here is an example of a podcast on fusion energy.
For interactive simulations, this is a great site:
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/Physics-Interactives
Here is a screenshot of a simulation of a standing wave.
An example of one of their simulations is here:
There are excellent sites for reviewing notes and to give an overview of which topics are covered.
And finally, there is this site giving worksheets by topic:
https://www.andrews.edu/~rwright/physics/worksheets/phyws.php
Enjoy!
I have been tutoring privately since 2013 and teaching mathematics and physics since 1996. I have tutored well in excess of 100 students since I started and have covered all manner of syllabi in both subjects. I have taught GCSE, IGCSE, A-level, Pre-U, International Baccalaureate as well as AP Calculus AB (the American syllabus).
In my experience, the most important factor which is overlooked is the tutor’s subject knowledge. A close second is the tutor’s enthusiasm and ability to motivate the student. If I am not totally familiar with a syllabus, all the information that I need is available online. But if I don’t understand the topics covered, it is not going to be much use even if I know the syllabus inside out. All maths and physics syllabi share a large amount of common material. You can be sure that 80% of the material is the same.
In 2019 I taught online a student taking Advanced Placement Calculus AB and used the free Khan Academy resources available here. I must say that it is a lovely resource as it keeps a running track of the student’s weaknesses and strengths topic by topic and even by subtopic.