About

I have nearly 20 years experience in teaching and tutoring in London and in Poland. Eight years ago after many years working as a an EAL/TEFL teacher and a general classroom teacher teaching all subjects I decided to transition into a specialist maths teaching role as this is the subject I have always been passionate about. I was lucky enough to have exceptionally talented maths teachers myself who instilled the knowledge and the love of the subject in me. Thanks to them I absolutely fell in love with fractions and algebra! Maths was always like an endless string of puzzles that needed to be solved and making mistakes was part of the fun! However, I later discovered that not everyone has this opportunity and therefore ever since I became a teacher myself I wanted to do the same for my students.

Since I started in my role as a specialist maths teacher I have always wanted to achieve the same goal: make everyone I teach less scared of the subject because if someone loves the subject like I did and thinks they can succeed, they will. The grades will follow. Teaching solely to achieve the grades (teaching to the test) by just learning rules and procedures was never something I was happy about. Unfortunately, this often happens in schools and therefore after giving it a lot of thought I decided that 1:1 tutoring is the way forward if I am to continue my journey as a maths specialist.

To be good at something requires a lot of practice and learning the skill properly from the beginning to establish a strong base. However, often the teaching of early maths isn’t given enough attention until it might be too late. Therefore I decided to train and specialise in teaching primary mathematics and through excellent explanations supported by the use of concrete and visual representations I make the abstract concepts more accessible. I ensure that the basics are mastered and then proceed with the learning according to the needs of the student. The pace is matched to the learners’ attainment levels so I can help everyone accordingly, those who struggle with basic maths concepts, those who need help with homework or anyone who needs to prepare for KS2 Maths SATs and transition to KS3. But I also work with the students who want to go beyond and extend their learning by including challenges and reasoning problems, some of which come from various maths competitions such as Primary Maths Challenge by the Mathematical Association where I am a member. 1:1 tuition is a perfect tool to achieve that as it allows to create bespoke and personalised sessions which is hard to achieve with a larger groups of students. Having said that, I also have a proven record of getting Y6 pupils from the state primary schools to achieve way above average results in their Y6 SATs with the latest being 87% of students in my class achieving expected level and above. 

What I offer is quite unique as I base my teaching methods and explanations not on any particular scheme of work or  a school textbook but on years of practice and developing expertise. For many years, before becoming a specialist maths teacher  I also worked as a TEFL teacher and tutor. I am fluent in both English and Polish and have a communicative level of Spanish which I am currently learning. My background as a Teacher of English as Foreign Language has helped me greatly with the transition to a specialist maths teaching role as I view mathematics as a very abstract form of language that in order to be mastered has to be taught properly from an early age and in a logical sequence of manageable steps. In order to achieve this level of expertise and specialism I have undergone an intensive training in the principles of Teaching School Mathematics developed by Prof Hung-Hsi Wu from Department of Mathematics at Berkeley, University of California. 1:1 tutoring enables me to use the knowledge and skills much more efficiently and with greater effect than would ever be possible in the classroom of up to 30 students where often those who struggle can easily fall through the cracks and those who excel are not always challenged enough.