Holly W.

Tutoring has been my full time job since 2020, though I first started during my A levels. Over my years as a tutor, I've had the privilege of witnessing numerous students unlock their full potential. Through personalized guidance and encouragement, I've had the joy of seeing my students flourish academically and gain confidence in their abilities. It's incredibly rewarding to witness the transformation as students discover their strengths and overcome challenges.

It is my sincere belief that every student can acheive their goals, no matter what challeges they may be facing. I myself, have dyslexia and ADHD and yet I have achieved both acedemic and personal success, I want my students to belive they can do this too. Drawing from my personal experience with ADHD, I've developed a unique understanding of how to effectively support students who may also have ADHD. This firsthand knowledge allows me to tailor my teaching approach to accommodate their specific needs and build confidence.

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Tutoring history

I first started tutoring when taking my A-levels. Our maths department was severely understaffed with only one teacher to ninety A-level Maths students. To ensure everyone got the support they needed I, as a further maths student, helped out with teaching as well as going from class to class to answer any questions the teacher did not have time to deal with.

Once in University I became a regular private tutor teaching maths, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and occasionally programming. My students at the time ranged in age from 13 to 17. As a summer project I re-wrote our introduction to MATLAB programming course to improve and update it for the next years students.

Upon graduating I found myself starting a PhD at the Max Plank Institute for Solar System Science, during my time here I taught a tutorial homework group for a group of 18 Masters students taking the course “Introduction to Astrophysics”. During this time I worked extra hours with two members of the group who were far behind as they had entered the Masters program from a different degree. With a lot of work and support they both manged to pass their exams.

Ultimately after 18 months I decided the full time academic life was not for me. Since leaving my PhD I have volunteered with The Dolphin Research Project in Montenegro and fulfilled a life long dream of becoming a climbing instructor. Now, after riding my Motorbike to Mongolia from London and back, I am a semi-regular speaker at travel events where I do my best to share my experience of putting yourself out there and achieving whatever it is you set out to do.

There is no fixed structure to the way I run my sessions as I have found everyone learns differently. I myself understand this very well as I have been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. One thing I have noticed, is that no matter how good the intentions of the student are, there will come a time where they simply cannot carry on concentrating though fatigue. Recognising this moment and being able to changing the teaching style is incredibly important. Trying to push through simply results in frustration for both the student and the tutor.

I genuinely care about each and every one of my students succeeding, to this end I am more than happy to provide homework questions to try if required. I also find it helpful for parents/guardians to have a general idea of the subjects covered so I provide a short report of each session designed to keep parents in the loop.