Tutor profile - Alan

Alan is a highly experienced and empathetic tutor having worked online with dozens of students each year since moving from full-time teaching to private tutoring in 2013. He has worked with all abilities, including students with ADHD and anxiety issues, students who have been off school due to illness and have needed to catch up and those in need of reparation for entrance examinations.

He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Warwick and worked in experimental physics research for a number of years at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory's neutron source near Oxford. After teaching Mathematics and Physics in Zimbabwe for Voluntary Service Overseas, he qualified as a science teacher in 2000. He has taught Mathematics and Physics up to A-level and IB HL level in international schools in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. He is an examiner for the IB board and has sponsored a young man through high school and university in Swaziland who graduated with a BA in Accounting and Commerce.

He has taught students with notable success, including helping many students achieve the necessary grades to enter their desired school or university. He adapts his teaching to the level of the student, seeks out useful resources and motivates students. He has also helped a student gain the necessary qualifications to enter Cambridge University as well as two special needs students pass Functional Skills mathematics. He has tutored to the 16+ exams for a number of independent schools. He has made it possible for failing GCSE students to pass mathematics and for many A-level and IB students to gain higher grades than they were predicted. He has taught a wide range of students from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds. In 2019, he supported a student in the lower sixth at Holland Park School who was at risk of being dropped from the A-level physics and maths courses. After five months of intensive tuition, he reached the standard to continue with both subjects. In 2020, he helped 9 and 13 year old siblings pass their maths entrance exams for Emanuel School and St Pauls in London. He is interested in development issues in Southern Africa, is a keen long-distance runner, and has completed nearly 40 marathons and ultra races.