I have a BSc in Mathematics and a PGCE in Secondary Maths Teaching. Alongside classroom experience, I’ve also supported adult learners with personal computing skills.

For most of my career, I worked in software engineering. Now semi-retired, I focus on what I enjoy most—helping others learn mathematics through private tuition.

Outside of teaching, I enjoy sea kayaking, wild swimming, French cinema, playing backgammon, music, and relaxing with a good episode of MasterChef. I live in central Edinburgh with my wife, and our Birman cat, Bella.

I have been offering private tuition since 2012 and have helped many tutees to obtain, or surpass, their target grades in SQA and A level exams. In the last 5 years alone I have delivered over 3000 hours of tuition!

In addition I have 4 years classroom experience, and have worked in providing adult education in computing.

As a dedicated teacher, I enjoy teaching at all levels of ability, tailoring my approach to the needs of my tutees. Having a calm and patient manner I enjoy the challenge of helping tutees to understand basic principles in ways that make sense to them. Whether you need help with a specific problem or an explanation of a more general concept I'm here to help. Just let me know what you need assistance with and I'll do my best to provide a clear and helpful response.

Elements of my approach:

review of basic maths practice of routine processes and methods discussion of how to approach A/B questions at Higher/A-level breaking down complicated maths to simpler ideas problem-solving techniques encouraging you to have a questioning attitude in your study of maths exam technique Our aim is to work towards creating a time and space where you can talk about and learn maths in a natural way. I contend that the big difference between private tuition and, say, watching tutor videos online, or learning by some other online or electronic means, is that a tutor can listen to you and detect things that are misunderstood and provide instant and friendly feedback to correct these misundertandings. I put it this way "You won't learn maths by listening to me or any other tutor for that matter but you may learn maths if I listen to you." Neither can you interrupt a video to ask a pressing question that has just occurred to you, but you can with a tutor. Any good tutor wants you to ask your question and to be engaged.

I ask my tutees to aim high and to that end the focus will always be on you developing as a confident learner.

Joan Boaler in her book Mathematical Mindsets states that “…for the vast majority of children — about 95% — any level of school maths are within their reach.” Further to the point, Nobel prize winner in Physics (1965), Richard Feynman: "I was an ordinary person who studied hard. There's no miracle people. "

With the right support and encouragement to think for yourself you are perfectly capable of learning maths and of being able to obtain a good pass in your exams. So please take this on board and adjust your mindset accordingly.

From my side it makes me really happy to think that, "I explained that well". I don't believe that one can teach effectively if one has forgotten what it is like not to know something.