Maths Anxiety is defined by the Maths Anxiety Trust as a negative emotional reaction to mathematics, leading to varying degrees of helplessness, panic and mental disorganisation that arises among some people when faced with a mathematical problem.
As you can imagine, this doesn’t allow students to perform at their best in maths papers or in lessons. Students with maths anxiety often relate this difficulty to deliver in maths papers to a general failure on their part and tend to move away from maths as a whole.
For students experience maths anxiety, it can present as negative self-talk (I can’t do this, I’m stupid) and cognitive overload (brain fog) when presented with a mathematical challenge. They may also experience physical symptoms of anxiety (tension, headaches, dizziness, stomach cramps, sweating). Generally the whole experience is very unpleasant, and so understandably leads to avoidant behaviours. These may be described as disruptive in a classroom environment (back talking to the teacher, comedy interruptions, storming out, repeated absence, truancy, temper tantrums, shutting down, copying, talking when asked to listen).
Initial assessments
When a student with anxiety reaches out for support, those students are often quite anxious about their initial session. That can present in a number of ways as described above. In those situations, it is far better to avoid anything that looks or feels like an exam. This already has negative connotations for the student. The physiological response they would experience in this scenario is similar to my having inflicted physical pain on them. We are trying to build trust and confidence rather than torturing them. Instead I opt for a verbal assessment, and we discuss the content they remember covering in class.
I always start out by getting to know my student. If they’re anxious around maths, we won’t talk about that (at least not obviously) at all at the beginning. Ask them what they enjoy, ask them how school went this week. Ask them what they would like to do in the next stage of their learning, or anything else that means them talking about themselves and the things that make them happy. Whatever they say, find a genuine way to be enthusiastic about it and relate to them. Do be genuine, as they’ll spot fakery and it’ll damage trust. By talking about things they enjoy, you’re already putting them into a good mood and building a connection with them.
Identifying the source of anxiety
Asking the student about their memory of maths lessons (in the context of identifying a topic) can lead them into a discussion of their emotional experience too if they’re feeling comfortable to share. I encourage this, and it allows me to normalise the experience for them. This will hopefully remove some of the isolation and judgement they may be feeling. Acknowledge what they’re feeling, and share that many students feel maths anxiety. It is not their fault, but it is something that can be overcome. I don’t make any false promises though – nothing happens without hard work on their part. I have my own experiences with anxiety, so I can relate to their experiences here.
It may also lead us to identify the source of their anxiety, if they’ve had a particularly bad experience. Often there is no single event, but a boiling pot of anxiety that has built up over time. The aim is to enable them to understand their emotional, physical, and mental experiences separately. I want to separate their anxiety from their comprehension. Without the requirement for delivering in this initial session (an informal chat) the hope is to identify their ‘wins’ and start to show them there is a more positive path for their future learning.
Building confidence for exams
Exams are often an anxiety trigger for these students. This is why we don’t start with a test, but they are an unfortunately staple part of the learning experience. Over time, we work to build confidence so that the exams are less daunting by the time they come around.
Can you remember a time that you had to do something that terrified you, and you overcame it and did it anyway? The chances are that it took up a lot of your mental energy in the process. And I’ll bet that after having done it you had a moment of elation. Sharing that with your student will help them to relate to you. It will also show them what they can achieve if they are willing to invest the mental energy up front.
The eternal confidence Catch-22 is that confidence comes from taking action. We very often wait to feel confident enough to do something before we start. We are left in a constant state of inaction which only confirms the ‘I can’t do this’ idea. We need to take one or two steps out of the ‘comfort zone’ to the ‘growth zone’.
Where is the growth zone?
The important thing to remember here is that going too far out of our comfort zone (boredom, no challenge, distraction) leads us into overwhelm (avoidance, panic, refusal). This is where those anxiety symptoms of brain fog and physical discomfort return. This is where our negative self-talk gathers more evidence for itself. It is so important to be supported in these steps so that students remain in the growth zone (asking questions, self-doubt, visible progress over time). They should be repeatedly shown evidence of their success.
You can also get a free copy of The Ultimate Guide to Exam Success, plus more helpful information like this, by signing up at https://subscribepage.io/greentutors.
All of the team at Green Tutors are passionate about STEM education. We’ve all chosen to study and work in STEM fields, and choose tuition to share our passion for learning STEM with our students. STEM learning, and student wellbeing are the two pillars that this company is built on.
So it will be no surprise that we’ve accumulated a LOT of STEM resources and connections in STEM education since starting business in 2012.
STEMazing is the creation of Alexandra Knight, and its mission is to empower women in STEM to shine and inspire young people to become our next generation of innovators and problem-solvers. Alexandra Knight is an award-winning engineer, presenter and diversity advocate. She is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Fellow of the Women’s Engineering Society, a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Brunel University and a STEM Ambassador.
One of the reasons girls do not consider careers in STEM is because there are not enough visible role models. I was lucky enough to join the STEMazing Women Inspiration Academy in 2022, and became one of the role models delivering live online STEM sessions to three different primary school classes. Here is my role model video.
The STEMazing Kids Club allows you to bring interactive STEM sessions into your home. They’re targeted at primary aged children, but I had a lot of fun doing them at the age of 38, so they’re fun for everyone.
I have been a STEM Ambassador with STEM Learning for more than a decade now. They deliver support for STEM learning across the UK in a variety of ways, including teacher CPD (continuing professional development) in STEM subjects, bringing STEM role models into schools as part of the STEM Ambassador Programme, and providing bespoke, long-term support for groups of schools through ENTHUSE Partnerships.
Schools can register to receive free support from STEM Ambassadors, or use the resources on the website. They also offer a directory of various other STEM resources across the internet.
As they have been providing this support for a long time now, they’re experts in supporting barriers to STEM Learning, and a very hard-working team.
Little Crafters Boxes is the work of Radha Borthayre, a former GCSE and A level computer science working with SEN students who found the boundaries of mainstream education did not have space for her creative teaching style. With an already successful business making wood-based gifts and craft materials, Radha combined her talents to deliver a monthly STEM subscription crafts box for home educating families. The business has grown to provide a wide range of resources for all families, and is a great way to inspire your little people to learn and try new things.
Making sweets and slime as science experiments from the Beaches of Sydney right through to the Australian Bush (in a pickup truck no less!) was the ‘slightly’ unusual inspiration for Sublime Science! After ‘Mad Marc’ had been a Professional Science Communicator (maker of slime & launcher of rockets!) across the UK, Canada and Australia & been a ‘real’ teacher in a school in Nottingham… inspiration struck. Why not pick out all the best, most fun, most exciting science experiments learnt over the years, all over the world, and put them all together?… Sublime Science was born!
‘Mad Marc’ featured on Dragon’s Den with his unforgettable science parties, bringing STEM learning to the most memorable of childhood experiences. You can now book a Sublime Science party over most of England, or get a copy of their eBook to learn how to deliver your own.
Inspiring the future of STEM learning is critical to our future and our childrens’ futures. The problems of today will be solved by the next generation, and they should be encouraged to develop a lifelong love of learning about the world around them.
For more resources and guidance on supporting your child with their maths and science GCSEs sign up for the free guide here.
Excellent customer service is the best way to sell your services
In the Tutors’ Facebook group the question I’m most frequently asked is what the best marketing for tutors is. It can be a challenge for tutors starting out to grow their business in the right way. There are so many tools, courses, and resources claiming to be the ‘key’ to successful marketing. But there is no question that the best marketing for tutors is excellent customer service.
The best marketing for tutors
All marketing aims to share what you are doing with the right audience, and why they need to buy it from you.
But while we’re trying to share that, the entire commercial world is doing the same thing. Customers get used to filtering out clear ads from view.
Which means that the best marketing for tutors is happy customers who are happy to refer your services to their friends. Those friends are most likely to be just like them. They value a recommendation from a friend over any advertising. Its a powerful selling resources.
Understand your target client
It is essential to truly understand who you are talking to in your marketing. Offer what they truly need, and communicate in a way that will resonate with them.
This will be a work in progress throughout your time in business, and you may even change direction. I make sure to understand all of my clients . Look for anything they have in common in order to better understand them. I seek their feedback on their experiences with studies and anxiety to give me ideas on how I can further help them.
How can you deliver a quick tutoring win
Building a positive relationship early can make a big difference with your clients. When I first talk with a potential client I seek to offer them something I can offer for a quick win. For example advice, a referral or a particular resource that will help them. Even if it turns out that you can’t support them with what they need, they’ll still have a positive view of you. They will still be willing to refer you to others. It can also help you to refine what you offer as it relates back to my first point – understand what your client needs.
This customer service does not end once tuition is confirmed. It is important to make an effort to connect with your students and their families. Really understand the problems they are facing. Each family is unique, but many of the problems they face overlap between clients. For the family, their situation is entirely unique. They don’t face exam preparation (or whatever you are supporting them with) on an annual basis, as you do. Your insight is more valuable to them than you may realise. You would do well to share it when you see fit.
You might also send messages of encouragement, seasonal cards, or even gifts to let them know you are thinking of them outside of lessons and invoicing. It means more than you might think to know that you are seen as a person and not just a client.
Check in with them regularly
Make a dedicated effort to ask your clients and students how they are doing. Its all very well having this as part of your onboarding sequence, or email automation, but there is nothing quite like a personal conversation to see how people are really doing. There may be little concerns that don’t warrant an email or an impersonal form response. You will learn a lot more about your customers and how you are meeting their needs if you give them the time to trust you are interested in hearing it.
Delivering excellent tuition is the minimum a customer expects from a tutor. What more can you do for them?
Don’t forget them when their tuition is complete
While it is important to give your time to your paying clients, they don’t drop off the face of the Earth when their tuition is complete. Remember to check in occasionally. Remember their birthdays and send messages or cards. Send well wishes as they move through the steps of their academic career, and forward anything you think may be of interest to them. This doesn’t have to take up a lot of your time. A couple of messages per year will more than suffice. It will help them to see that you remember them as more than a client, and their family is important to you. They’ll be very happy to refer you to any friends and family, and will keep you in mind for as long as you are in touch with them.
Ultimately the best marketing for tutors is to really understand and support your clients in the best possible way. The better you understand them, the better you can support them. The more impact you can have for them, and turn them into your biggest cheerleaders.
When you picture your child working with a tutor, what does it look like? Do you picture them at the kitchen table with a man in a tweed jacket? Or have you considered the many benefits of group tuition? All too often group tuition is overlooked as the low-cost alternative to individual tuition, but it offers so much more than that and I’d like to share those benefits with you today.
Group tuition (Canva image)
What does group tuition look like?
Our group classes are delivered online, to make it easier for your child to attend. They’re usually small groups of 2-5 students on a Zoom call together, all working at the same or similar levels on the same subject. The students are assessed to make sure that this is the case, and the group is well matched.
The lesson will be delivered and the task set as a group, but feedback can be shared with each individual student as they’re working, and questions can be asked in private to allow less confident students to participate.
For those students not able to attend a particular lesson, everything is recorded and shared to work through in their own time, and there is built in accountability to make sure that they are participating and benefiting.
According to a study by the Education Endowment Foundation, a charity focused on raising pupil attainment and closing the disadvantage gap in education, small group tuition can boost learning by an additional 4 months over the course of a year. Read more here.
Shared accountability
So many times in my life when I’ve been working towards a ‘stretch’ goal (something that pushes me out of my comfort zone) I’ve struggled to get there on my own.
I’ve had the best success when learning in a small group environment. Like when I joined a Personal Training group for women with three members.
Despite not being a morning person, and HATING going into the gym, I got up every weekday morning at 6am for several months and went to the gym with these three women.
I did’t want to let them down, or be the one that dropped out. The group environment added an extra layer of accountability. It kept me focused and so I worked much harder than I would have on my own.
Moral support
Everyone has bad days. On those days we can easily forget all of the successes, all of the hard work, and every time we’ve got it right. The cloud descends and suddenly everything is awful and we’re totally incapable. In our own minds.
And it can feel awkward working with a coach or teacher who is an expert in the very thing I’m finding difficult. So it becomes too easy to feel like I’m just not good at it and to give up.
When you experience those days with others who are at the same point in their journey, they can be on hand to remind you that you’re just having a bad day, it’s temporary, and don’t give up.
What’s more, being the person who gets to deliver that message to someone else is incredibly empowering for students, and helps them to believe it about themselves too.
Confidence building
In a similar way, group tuition can build your own confidence in your abilities, as you’re able to progress alongside your peers rather than at the hands of an ‘expert’.
While I discourage students to compare themselves to others as we’re on our own path, it is enlightening to see how others struggle where they breeze through, and vice versa. On the same journey there are many branched paths, and we’ll stumble in different places, and soar in different places. The group environment allows students to learn about their own strengths and even support others along the way. There is immense value in that for their confidence building.
Competitiveness
Even the meekest students have a competitive streak. I have often motivated students by telling them how their brother / sister / friend did with the same task. Of course they immediately want to do better. (Incidentally a similar tactic works against themselves – tell them how they did last month and they’ll want to beat that too.)
What better motivation than pitching them against each other in the same task in a group lesson?
However this is delivered in such a way that there can be a winner, but never a loser. Everyone’s individual work is celebrated for what it is – their own individual work.
Less pressure
When working one to one with a tutor the lesson is all about you, which means you’re in focus 100% of the time. That isn’t always a good thing, as self-conscious students or those less confident in the subject can become overwhelmed and disengage from the lesson. They then have to be brought back in after time to give their brain a break.
In a group, the attention moves between the members, so everyone naturally gets time for a brain break, time to sit back and absorb, and time to jump in and contribute.
So each individual feels less pressure to ‘perform’ in the lesson.
Fun!
One of the main aims of lessons is to make learning fun. Too much of GCSE and A level terms are focused on pressure, goals, measurement, assessment, comparison. There’s little time for fun, and often attempts at fun in school are marked as bad behaviour.
In small group lessons, there’s plenty of room for fun as well as learning. And to be perfectly honest, I think it is an essential part of the process.
We’re working to build lifelong learners with a passion for STEM subjects, and that’s not going to come out of a dry lecture followed by an exam.
But it can come out of making jokes, making personal connections, and finding the fun in learning together.
We offer group tuition at Green Tutors from February to June every year. This year we’re focusing on supporting students on the pass/fail margin GCSE maths to give them the boost they need to pass their exam this year. If you’re interested in joining us, you can sign up at https://greentutors.co.uk/group-classes/.
You may be considering hiring a tutor, but not sure what to expect. You might have experienced hard sales tactics in the past, or regretted sharing your contact details by the fifth ‘Just checking’ message. I want to put your mind at ease today and tell you exactly what happens when a potential client gets in touch with me at Green Tutors.
The tutor team April 2019
These are some of the questions I am frequently asked when people contact me.
What information do you need?
Ultimately, I just need to be able to contact you when you request a tutor. Within a quick phone call or text conversation, I can identify the support you need, and whether it is something I can provide.
While every student is different, and the benefit of hiring a tutor is that tuition can be very personalised, there are a few common threads that our tuition tends to follow.
I will ask the age of your child, what they’re currently studying (qualification and level, i.e. GCSE maths and they’re in year 10), and identify what their particular goals and challenges are.
This will help me to match them to a tutor and share some advice, but their tutor will work with them in more detail and make sure they receive the targeted support they need.
When do I have to pay?
You won’t have to pay a penny until you’ve agreed on an ongoing schedule after hiring a tutor. Lessons are billed monthly in advance, so you will receive a bill for the remainder of the current month, due a couple of days before the first scheduled lesson happens.
Going forward, you’ll receive monthly invoices around the middle of the month, giving you at least a week to pay (usually two).
When you’re hiring a tutor for a regular lesson, the bill should be the same each month, and you can set it up on a Direct Debit so you don’t have to think about it.
If you want to change your schedule, pause the lessons, or increase them as exams approach, you can do that whenever you like, with a minimum of 48 hours’ notice. There is no minimum requirement for bookings.
What happens in the lessons?
There is no set approach, as the tutors will customise the lesson to the student and their goals.
If the student needs to build confidence, we’ll work on demonstrating their abilities, getting some ‘quick wins’ to show them what they’re capable of, and spend more time on any identified challenging areas as they come up. You can read more about this in our blog How can students get more confident before their exams.
If the student is preparing for an exam, we’ll work through exam questions with them, share the way that mark schemes are applied, and assist them in finding ways to put their knowledge onto paper. We’ll also share time management skills to help prevent overwhelm.
For anxious students, we’ll work through an anxiety ladder with them and help them to improve their resilience. We’ll share positive habits that will improve their well-being and help them to deal with future challenges. Cai Graham share’s some great advice on managing stress and anxiety.
Ultimately, we’re trying to make ourselves redundant. Successful hiring of a tutor ends with a student who can learn and grow independently so that they can go on to the next step of their academic career with confidence and a study ‘toolkit’.
What happens if my child doesn’t get along with the tutor?
I make sure that all of the tutors I hire are friendly and approachable, and know how to build relationships with their students.
That being said, it is important for the student to get along with their tutor, as we’re encouraging them to step out of their comfort zone and be vulnerable.
If you hire a tutor and then feel like your child is not getting along with them, I encourage you to get in touch and let me know. We’re very happy to receive your feedback, and we’re able to match you to a new tutor very quickly. We don’t take it personally.
Your tutor will also let you know if we feel like there is a challenging relationship, and give recommendations, as we want you to get the most from your investment. We know well that not every child comes easily to tutoring, and we’re happy to work with you to identify and improve any roadblocks. We want our students to enjoy learning.
Do you provide the support I need?
We provide online tuition for STEM subjects (maths, science, computer science, engineering) for 11-18-year-olds and adult learners.
I have been operating in this area since 2011, and have a wealth of experience in this area.
But I also have a wide network in the tutoring community, and I am always able to recommend someone if what you need doesn’t match what we offer.
For primary tuition I often refer students to Portia Smith.
What support will my child get?
Alongside regular tuition, we provide each student with a library of resources to work with in a Google Drive.
We send everyone a graphics tablet after their first session so that they can work directly with their tutor online. It removes the need to print massive exam bundles and means their work is saved online.
We provide a free revision masterclass to all clients so that they can make the most of their time with the tutor by also building in good habits. They’ll leave with a revision schedule that works for them, and includes time for work, rest, and play.
They’ll learn valuable study skills that they will be able to take with them through their entire academic career, from our team of experienced academic tutors who know well how to make the most of their study time.
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We’d love to support your child with their study goals. Submit your details at https://greentutors.co.uk/request-for-tuition/ for a no-obligation introductory appointment with a tutor.
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