Pauline M

Former head of science and fully qualified physics teacher with 29 years experience and after taking early retirement in 2022 , I still feel very passionate about my subject. I have a desire to continue to pass on the knowledge and enthusiasm I have so that others can achieve their full potential. My experience allows me to recognise the areas of physics that students have most difficulty with and to break these down into small manageable steps. As the sole physics teacher in the science department, I had full responsibility for writing course plans, lesson plans, homework booklets and delivering lessons for all levels of physics including nat4, nat5 and higher.

Since retiring from teaching in 2022, I've kept myself in touch with my subject by tutoring GCSE, IGCSE, A level, national 5 and higher physics online. I also have experience of tutoring national 5 maths.

I aim to build confidence in your ability to succeed by helping you identify your strengths as well as any weakness and how to address these. The aim of your first tutorial is to find out how the sessions can be adapted to suit your needs. Each session will start by identifying your strengths and any weaknesses on a particular section of the course. We will then go over the theory on that part of the course, do some worked examples together and let you try a question or two on your own. Tips on study and exam techniques and useful resources will be given throughout. Once we have covered enough theory and worked examples on a particular topic we will then work through some past exam questions to build even more confidence. I will give constructive feedback on what you need to improve on and how to do this to improve your grade. I will set some work at home to consolidate your learning and address any difficulties that you have at the start of your next tutorial.

I am confident and experienced at delivering lessons for the following major UK exam boards - SQA, AQA, OCR, Edexcel and WJEC. I have marked exam papers for the SQA and I did some moderation work for them on the added value assessment at national 4 level. As head of science I led the department to produce mock exam papers and moderate and mark them to the SQA standard.

During my teaching career I’ve had many students that achieved good grades and went on to study engineering. My physics results were highlighted as the best in the school compared with other subjects. One of the most recent students I tutored online was struggling to pass physics prior to my input but has since gone on to university. Students that I tutored last year improved by a grade, and in one case, 2 grades from their mock exam.