Christopher

Hi! I'm a professional mathematician (I've previously worked for the University of Bristol and the Polish Academy of Science). But I also really enjoy teaching people maths: helping them to understand it, and perhaps find a new appreciation for it.

I recognise that some people might hear "professional mathematician" and think of someone in an ivory tower, but that's not how I operate. I keep things informal, and focus on meeting you where you're at - using my own long experience of learning maths to help me see how I can help you best.

Having done my undergraduate degree at Oxford, I'm also able to provide tuition for the Oxbridge maths admissions tests, and advice on interviews (at the same hourly rate as A level tuition). Similarly, I've also taught "extracurricular" maths to bright students interested in learning more, or preparing for maths challenges and olympiads. Please send me a message if that's something you'd be interested in :)

I can also provide tuition for the 11+ entrance exam; please contact me to discuss specifics of this.

Tutoring Experience

I've tutored a wide range of different types of students, all the way from university level students (both privately and in universities) right down to a primary school child. A lot of my tuition experience to date has involved working with neurodivergent students (ADHD, autism, dyslexia, etc) which has taught me to adapt my tutoring to your particular needs and interests.

Tutoring Approach

My experience from tutoring, and from my own education, has convinced me that everyone learns maths in slightly different ways. Usually, when we get stuck and find that something we're taught makes no sense to us, it turns out to be because it's building on something we were taught earlier that we didn't really understand. (This is true both at school and at university-level maths - it's happened to me on many occasions!)

One on one tuition gives a great opportunity to fix these problems, because it lets me see how you're thinking about things, spot underlying misunderstandings, and find ways to explain things which will work for you. Doing things this way doesn't just give you what you need to guess your way through the next exam, it lets you really get the hang of what you're learning and lays the groundwork you need to avoid getting confused again further down the line.

This is particularly true if you're neurodivergent, which means - pretty much by definition - that you think in different ways to everyone else. So with a classroom lesson designed for neurotypical people, there will probably be some bits you find easy, and others you find very difficult. I can focus on learning how you think, and find ways to explain things which you will understand. As I said, a lot of my experience tutoring up to this point has been of neurodivergent people so I have a good deal of experience with this.

With Oxbridge applications, I find in most cases, the most important thing to focus on is developing your ability to think logically and write mathematically. Once you've got an idea for how to answer the question, how do you explain that idea to the examiners in writing? This is a surprisingly difficult skill, a little like learning another language, and it's one which is not covered at all at A-level. The examiners tend to be generous, since they understand that you might not have had that training. But too often, applicants lose marks even after solving the maths, because they weren't able to show the examiners any evidence that they had found the answer. To teach you these skills, we'll focus on past admissions questions. Once you've found a solution I'll guide you through the process of writing down your answer, meaning we're practicing all aspects of the admissions test at the same time.