Julie

Below is a snapshot of my recent tutoring experience.

13+ Maths

A year 8 boy preparing for 13+ entry to a local independent senior school, came to me with a good natural feel for numbers but gaps in fractions, ratio and algebra, and a habit of rushing multi-step problems and losing marks to careless errors. He was also feeling unsettled socially at school and nervous about the move to senior school, which was affecting his confidence going into the Common Entrance exam.

After a short past-paper diagnostic test to pinpoint exactly where marks were slipping, I met him once a week in the lead up to the exam, rebuilding foundations first before moving on to problem-solving and unfamiliar question styles. Our sessions gave him a calm, consistent space where he could ask questions without worrying about how he came across, and I used this to talk through his worries about the transition alongside the maths.

I introduced timed sections gradually, building up to full papers, and used mark schemes to show him how method marks are earned and how to check his work efficiently. Over the term his mock scores rose from 52% to 78%, his accuracy and exam stamina improved noticeably, and he approached the exam, and the move to senior school, with far greater assurance.

IGCSE Maths Edexcel – Building Confidence

I began working with this student in Year 9, when she was placed in set 3 for maths. She was quietly diligent from our very first session, and over the three years we worked together, I watched her grow not just in ability but in self-belief — she moved up to set 2 and never let up on the effort that got her there. By the end of Year 11, her hard work culminated in a grade 8, and I was as delighted as she was to see it.

IGCSE Maths — Exam Technique

This student arrived at the start of Year 11 already a capable mathematician, but frustrated at narrowly missing the top grades. He had a real appetite for detail, and we spent our sessions going over past papers together in great detail, picking apart mark schemes line by line until he understood precisely what examiners wanted to see. Watching him apply that understanding with growing confidence was genuinely rewarding, and it showed in his final result — a grade 8.

IGCSE Maths – Understanding mathematical language

I met this student in Year 9 at a GDST school in London. She was clearly bright, but as English wasn’t her first language she found the longer, more detailed word problems tricky and often did not achieve the marks she deserved. We spent a lot of time together unpicking unfamiliar vocabulary, working through questions step by step, and helping her find her own voice in her written solutions. She was a determined and thoughtful student to teach, and her final grade 9 was a brilliant reflection of just how far she had come.

IGCSE Maths — Developing Focus and Resilience

Having moved schools several times, this student was still settling into the British education system when we started working together in Year 10. She was chatty and easily distracted at first, but underneath that was a student who genuinely wanted to do well. We soon found our rhythm though, studying two hours a week in term time and often more during the holidays, and gradually she learned to trust her own ability. She was justifiably proud when she moved from a grade 4 in her February mock to a grade 7 by the final summer.

GCSE Maths — Revisiting the Fundamentals

This student was in Year 8 and had been disappointed by his summer exam result. Although he’d grasped most of the material, there were still a few gaps in his foundational knowledge holding him back. Rather than push straight on, we made the decision to go back a few steps and revisit the basics together. It was the right call as his confidence grew considerably as those gaps closed, and for the first time he genuinely started to enjoy the subject.

A-Level Maths — Exam Pace and Confidence

I met this student in Lower Sixth. She was clearly very able, but tended to seek constant reassurance that her answers were correct and that she’d fully grasped each topic. Her solutions were often more detailed than they needed to be, which meant she was losing valuable time in tests and exams. We worked steadily on honing her exam technique, and as her pace improved, so did her confidence. Her results in both tests and exams then followed suit, and it was lovely to watch her trust her own judgement more with each session.

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