About Louise

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I have a really diverse educational and professional background which makes me quite different to a school teacher. See a brief overview below. 

My background enhances how I relate to people, communicate with them, and build their confidence. But it also hugely informs how I teach English and Maths, give examples and demonstrate their usefulness and relevance. 

For example - why where a comma sits can turn a legal case on its head. Or the story of how I actually got to use Pythagoras’ theorem when I was working for a museum!

I started my education at a regular, local primary school, and went on to two local state secondary schools to prepare for my GCSEs.

I often felt frustrated at all three schools that my progress wasn't well-enough supported. We were lucky to be able to pay for a private tutor when I sometimes didn't have a Maths or Physics teacher for my GCSEs. This was 16 years ago - I know many parents are in this difficult position today. 

I was really pleased to gain 12 x GCSE's at A* and A. I then took entrance exams and was delighted to be awarded a full academic scholarship at Rugby School to study for my A-Levels.  

Wow - this was a world apart from how I had grown up and what I was used to! A huge learning curve with new opportunities, and pressures. I left wiser in many ways, with  4 (and a half!) A-Levels at grade A*-B. 

I feel really lucky to have experienced both ends of the spectrum and to have been able to re-evaluate my priorities and values about education.  What worked for me, and what was important to me. 

I have really diverse tutoring, teaching, coaching and mentoring experience over 14 years. 

In brief:

• Private tutoring in Maths and English for children between 7 and 16 years of age
• Private tutoring for an adult re-taking his Maths GCSE
• Academic and pastoral mentoring for students at University College London
• Mentoring a teenager in a disadvantaged London school
• Voluntary teaching of English and Maths to young children and non-literary adults in Tanzania, East Africa

I have also had a diverse career outside of teaching. 

In brief:

• First, in the post-production of BBC America broadcast programmes and then for Warner Brothers producing localised new film trailers for Europe, the Middle East and Africa
• Many years project managing and working as a Producer for educational digital interactives, documentaries, soundscapes and audio description for museums around the world, including the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C, the Science Museum London, Oman Botanic Gardens and Nevada State Parks Ice Age Fossils Museum

I also have very broad interests and knowledge. At university (University College London - UCL) I would sometimes pretend to be a medical student or a law student to sit in on some of their most interesting lectures (I was studying Linguistics!).

This cross-disciplinary approach is often lacking in schools, where children fail to see the relevance of what they are learning for the real world or what they want to do 'when they're older'. When working on exhibitions for museums, we would often ask in meetings 'Why should I care?' I'm very used to putting myself into the shoes of a tired teenager who doesn't see why they have to learn something and why this is actually beneficial to them and the rest of the world.