Ruth

Hi! My name is Ruth and I'm a 21 year old mathematics student at the University of Edinburgh, where I'm just going into my third year out of four. I'm originally from London, where I attended an inner-city state school. I loved it, but also it means I understand that sometimes students need a little more individual support than their schools are able provide.

Tutoring Experience

I have 2 years' experience of tutoring for maths. During my A-levels I would regularly tutor for neighbours and friends of friends (usually 3-4 hours per week). The people I was tutoring ranged from 6 to 11 years old, and the sessions were mainly online as this was during Covid.

Tutoring Approach

My lessons can be very varied depending on what it is you're looking for!

When I used to tutor previously, the general way I would plan my lessons was just to ask the student at the end of each session what they would like to look at next. This would usually be something that they had been studying at school in the last couple of weeks but not really understood. I would then prepare a worksheet for the next lesson with lots of questions on this topic, which we would work through together during the session. Sometimes I would send these to be printed off before the lesson if it was something the pupil would benefit from having in front of them. The questions would be of increasing difficulty, and depending on the complexity of the topic and the confidence of the student, they sometimes took more than one lesson to get through. Once both the student and I were happy that they understood the topic properly, I would ask what else they found difficult, and we would move on to that.

I found that this worked very well with the people I was tutoring but am aware it would not suit everybody, so I am happy to take a different approach if that is what you're looking for. If you/your child are trying to prepare for a specific exam, I can work systematically through the syllabus for it. If you are struggling with school work I can go through worksheets and exams you've had marked and explain the parts where you went wrong, or help with any homework you're struggling with.

Along these lines, I am happy to set homework between sessions so you can practise the topics we cover in your own time too, if this would be helpful. I can put together worksheets of questions for you to work through independently that we can then go over in a lesson and correct any mistakes. However if additional homework on top of what you're already getting from school would be too much, I am absolutely fine to keep all the work to within lessons!