Physics tuition, properly specialised

There are a lot of tutors. Some are excellent, some are university students working from the mark scheme a week ahead of your child. Three things make me different, and they're worth being plain about.

I trained as a physics teacher in Cuba, in Spanish, in five years. The Cuban system has no category called "not a maths person". If a student hasn't understood, the teaching is what changes. That is not a slogan to me — it's the method I was trained in, and it's why the first thing I do is find the break rather than push harder on the current topic.

Fifteen of my twenty years were spent as a supply teacher. That sounds like a weakness and it isn't. It put me in a very large number of schools, classes and year groups — far more than a teacher who stays in one department ever sees. I have taught the same topic to dozens of different classes who had no reason to give me the benefit of the doubt. You learn very quickly which explanations actually work.

I'm also a registered mental health nurse. I work on a psychiatric intensive care unit. A significant number of students who are "underperforming" are actually anxious, exhausted, or avoiding a subject because it's become frightening. I notice that early, I don't panic about it, and I know the difference between a student who needs pushing and a student who needs something else entirely.