FORMER STUDENTS
Student A
I taught this girl for 7 years until she was 18. She took her IGCSE in Mathematics early – just for the fun of it! Eventually I prepared her for her IB Mathematics and IB Chemistry and she got grades 7 and 6 respectively. She was very hard-working and I’ll miss our games of Scrabble!
Student B
I taught this young man for 4 years in the American system. He achieved top grades all the while I taught him including a grade 5 in AP Calculus and a grade 5 in AP Statistics. Particularly in his Stats studies, he really took notice of my warning that it can be difficult to get the top grade in the AP Stats exam. The questions contain many subtleties. He recommended me as a tutor on his school website.
Student C
She was a girl lacking in confidence in mathematics when I started teaching her a year before her IGCSE. She got an A in that and later did well in her Standard Level IB Maths – I think she got a 5 grade. She used to worry terribly about her work and stayed up till 2 am sometimes studying. Often, her test results were patchy. Because of timetable clashes she ended up having to take IB Physics and her teacher had chosen the “Relativity” option for the class. After a while I realized that part of her problem was that the equations in her textbook were mis-typed! After her exam she said that she’d found the Relativity paper easy and she scored a grade 6 as her IB Physics grade!
I was particularly proud of Student C’s progress because for a while it looked like stress was going to ruin her chances. I managed to convince her to get more sleep and worry less. It’s not always that way though…
Student D
She was the older sister of a boy I was teaching. The parents asked if I would help her in the last year of school with AP Calculus and AP Chemistry. She was finding the work hard. She became quite negative about her progress, would miss lessons and started to neglect her Chemistry work. Try as I might, I was unable to get her into a positive frame of mind – she was too stressed to respond. She got a 3 in her AP Calculus and a 2 in her AP Chemistry.
When you become stressed, it can be difficult to function properly and get out of negative attitudes. Glad to say, Student D re-took Calculus at College and did well – the new environment helped her make a fresh start.
Student E
He looks happy doesn't he? That's because he reached his first-choice university: the London School of Economics. He's pictured outside the LSE logo. By the Christmas before his exams, he was doing fairly well but was not getting top marks in his school tests. I was teaching him A-Level Mathematics which included the Mechanics (applied maths: forces, kinematics etc.) and Statistics. He needed an A grade to go to LSE and achieved that. He worked very hard and always had homework to show me. He had a terrible habit of mis-copying the formulas in the Formula Sheet which drove me crazy! Getting him to slow down and set out his solutions more clearly was my main task. I was pleased that he succeeded so well!