Growing up I was always in the “smart class” for maths however I felt as though I was never quite as smart as everybody else. I felt like I could not achieve the grades everyone around me was and I felt like I could not do the complicated equations they were. I would always copy other peoples work and write try and dodge the difficult maths I was being told to do. I never felt confident in myself that I could get the right answer and I could understand.

Around a year before my GCSE exams I started going to my maths tutor, Lena. She told me that she taught maths in a different way. A way the people like me can understand. If I struggled with a problem, she would draw diagrams and tell stories and talk me through it at my own pace and this is what truly helped. In schools, teachers teach every person in every class the same way and expect everyone to follow. There is no time for one-to-one teaching and everyone is forced to learn the same way. If you don’t understand, you would simply never understand the problem. However being taught by Lena was different. I was never made to do algebra one week then fractions the next. I could chose what I did and what I really struggled with and we would repeat that topic until i finally understood. She even tied maths in with the subject I truly love, psychology. This helped me more to understand why she teaches in the perfect way she does.

I was finally beginning to understand the topics I could not understand. The topics at school I would try and dodge. The topics the teachers expected me to learn because I was in the “smart class.” As I learned more of these topics with Lena, my confidence began rapidly growing and even she could notice it. My maths teacher started noticing it. Although I still struggled here and there with fractions and negative numbers she persisted with me. Then my confidence was growing so fast. The block in my head I had where I would dodge certain topics was gone. On my mock exams I was achieving 20 marks higher and I could help other people in lessons.

One of my maths lessons with Lena I pushed the text book to the side and we just talked. She told me a story about her and her son and how he told her if anything ever goes wrong just to “start all over again.” In my final GCSE exams if I was ever stressed about a question I would remember this and tell it to myself. This lesson with Lena truly made me more confident and happy that I would be fine in my exams. Not only was Lena amazing at teaching me maths but she taught me some amazing life lessons.

Overall, I achieved a grade 6 in GCSE maths, which is two grades higher than a pass. I truly wish I had gone to Lena sooner because I knew that confidence would have gone long before and I would have tried any question thrown in front of me. If i had enjoyed maths then as much as I do now I would never have felt that confidence block. I understand the importance of teaching students in their own way rather the ways of the education specifications. I honestly wish I started learning maths the way I did much sooner…. that truly is how I feel about maths xxx.

16 yrs from Stevenage 09/11/2017