Tom Kennedy

I've been a tutor of some sort off and on since I was 16 - at first I spent a lot of time guitar teaching, before progressing to Maths and Physics tutoring once I got my A Levels. On top of this, at university I was involved in numerous teaching roles: I supervised groups of five first years (6 groups so 30 total students) which involved marking their work, meeting twice a week for an hour to discuss difficult problems and ideas, as well as pastoral responsibilities. I also spent 10 weeks volunteering as a maths teacher in Mtwara Tanzania, where I taught three separate classes of 50 students for all of their maths lessons. My philosophy towards teaching is that the best way to learn is by doing, and my role is to support students in actually doing maths for themselves, by pointing out interesting or informative questions, and critiquing their answers to make sure they have fully understood the material. Additionally, I believe whole-heartedly that maths is fascinating and I try to pass my passion and love of mathematics on to my students - school does not always present maths in a way which makes it inherently interesting, and students with a more creative mindset often do not achieve as well despite these ways of thinking being incredibly important in mathematics. I try to tailor my approach to my students way of thinking, and show them that the proscriptive way we are taught to do maths is not a true representation of the subject, and that they can both understand and enjoy mathematics much more using their creativity and native problem solving.