Calum

I'm an experienced tutor, having taught for the last six years and I have recently completed my doctorate in Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford. My research was in computational galaxy dynamics, where I studied the motions of stars around supermassive black holes. I currently teach maths, physics, astronomy and computer skills. Prior to my postgraduate work I studied at the University of Edinburgh and Cults Academy. I have taught undergraduates within the University, demonstrating Physics, Computing and Astrophysics in the labs, and I engage regularly in astronomy public outreach.

I am currently based in Didcot, but I am happy to travel to Oxford or Reading to teach.

Tutoring Experience

I have taught University undergraduates of all levels in the Physics labs. In particular, I have taught general Physics to first year undergraduates, scientific programming skills to first and second year students and Astrophysics to third year undergraduates.

I have worked as a private tutor for the last four years and have more than a thousand hours teaching experience. I primarily tutor students in Maths and Physics at A-Level (AS & A2) and GCSE and have experience teaching the syllabi from all the major exam boards (Edexcel, OCR, AQA, CIE, WJEC and CCEA, as well as SQA Highers & Advanced Highers), including acting as a dedicated tutor for students taking qualifications outside of school. I have also taught GCSE Astronomy and a number of courses for University-level qualifications. Much of my tuition has been to help students prepare for exams, including successfully helping students through resit/re-take exams and successful applicants for Oxbridge entrance exams. I also have a large amount of experience with online tuition, both to support local in-person tuition and for long distance learning.

Tutoring Approach

I'm easygoing, patient and I'm happy to work at the pace of the student. Every student has different needs and different strengths - some might want ongoing support in a course they find difficult, while others might be trying to refine their exam techniques - so I tailor lessons to the individual. More generally, I feel it is essential to strike a balance between building an understanding of where a particular concept comes from and encouraging the student to apply that knowledge to problems to build confidence. I often try to find interesting or relevent applications to demonstrate ideas to students.

A lot of my tutoring is carried out online. In practise it is possible to achieve a high level of communication between the tutor and student and can be very flexible. If you are interested in online tuition or have any questions about how it works please feel free to get in touch.