Jade Russell-Thomas

Mathematician/Maths Tutor

I have experience teaching at the Access Project a charity working with underprivileged children. When working with the children, I worked on a one-to-one basis. The private tuition I provided was affordable for parents. It was very important for me because I worked with a lot of children who needed my support therefore I found working as a volunteer tutor extremely rewarding. Seeing my students excel in something I taught them was a joy to see as I would watch them reach their targets and fulfil their potential because of my intervention. It was something I definitely enjoyed and I am glad I can continue to do this with this Black Teachers Tutor.

I joined this company as I wanted to really give children the confidence in maths especially black children. Going through the education system I have noticed that black people are unrepresented when it comes to maths, at higher levels and higher grades. I have found this is sometimes due to not having the right support or not knowing where they can go after taking maths further than just GCSE level. This pushed me to volunteer a minimum of an hour tuition a week to give them the confidence needed to excel learning new skills and applying the skills they already knew. These were one to one sessions where I was teaching Year 10 and Year 11 students. The children led the learning and I facilitated their progress and attainment within each session. So whatever they felt they hadn't grasped in class while at school, we would go over in the session and do further questions and activities to ensure they were confident in that topic. I believe at this age they are able to identify what they are struggling with. However, for students who may be a bit shy, I would go through topics starting with the lower levels to gauge their ability and go from there. My role included preparing lessons and also preparing material and resources for the classes, based on the topic suggested by students or my own pre planning. I would plan lessons based on their performances in previous lessons.

I remember being a young black child and being told I wouldn't succeed, partly because of my behaviour or just the lack of believing in me, by teachers. Luckily I had strong supportive parents who pushed me to become the success I am today. I know some students don't have that support that's where I believe we can come in. For young black children I think it is important to show them that it is possible do well in maths or any other subject they want to pursue. Hence I believe I can bridge that gap and support students to give them that confidence they need.

I am based in Croydon so will be happy to tutor around the south London region