Qualified teacher (9 years) and tutor (12 years) of Maths and Further Maths. Maths Graduate. Founder of two education businesses.

Learn more about George

• When did you develop an interest in your chosen field and in private tutoring?

  I always enjoyed mathematics, but with the help of a brilliant GCSE teacher I began to link different areas of my knowledge and became an able problem solver. Since then maths has been a great passion of mine. I began private tutoring whilst working at Imperial College where I also taught undergraduates and enjoyed it so much that I decided to become a teacher!

• Tell us more about the subject you teach, the topics you like to discuss with students (and possibly those you like a little less).

  I teach Maths and Further Maths across the secondary age range (11 - 18). I particularly enjoy designing extension exercises, but I also take pride in being able to provide pupils with a range of explanations to facilitate their learning regardless of the current level.

• Did you have any role models; a teacher that inspired you?

  My own GCSE teacher was a huge inspiration as was my older brother who studied Mathematics at Oxford University. Both deserve praise for inspiring my curiousity and discussing with me concepts beyond the curriculum which only increased my love for the subject. Gödel's incompleteness theorem, Fermat's last theorem, Euler's identity...these are all concepts of great beauty!

• What do you think are the qualities required to be a good tutor?

  There are so many factors it's not possible to list them all but among other things: an ability to stretch pupils who are already achieving top grades with meaningful extension activities; experience of how pupils respond to different explanations of the same concept; knowledge of how to work with pupils who may have specific learning needs.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your subject or your days at school.

  I have seen so many examples of pupils and tutees who has resolved to achieve a given target. A bottom set mathematician in year 10 who went on to achieve A-grade at A-Level, my very first tutee who had fallen out with his teacher and was on a D-grade when I began working with him but ended up achieving A*, I don't deserve too much credit for this though as I was simply facilitating the learning of a naturally able learner. There are many more.

• What were the difficulties or challenges you faced or still facing in your subject?

  The more I teach, the more I recognise potential stumbling blocks for pupils. Literacy, arithmetic and prior knowledge are all potentially limiting aspects to a pupil's short term learning. The teacher (or tutor) needs to be able to adjust the explanation to optimise learning. This is a never-ending process for the reflective practitioner who should always be searching for better ways to explain concepts.

• Do you have a particular passion? Is it teaching in general or an element of the subject or something completely different?

  I especially enjoy when pupils make links between different areas of knowledge, and things click into place. When pupils can explain concepts in different ways, or develop the fluency to solve problems using different methods this is both rewarding for the pupil, and confirmation for the teacher that the content is now understood on a conceptual level.

• What makes you a Superprof (besides answering this interview questions :-P) ?

  You will have to find out. It is never just one thing, it is not even the case that a tutor can show themselves to be effective in a single lesson. Is the learner making progress? Are they gaining confidence? These two things should be asked by the parents in deciding whether the tutor is a 'superprof'!