Meet one of our volunteer Maths tutors – Alex

Meet one of our volunteer Maths tutors – Alex

Other Volunteer Roles Our Impact Volunteer spotlight Volunteers What's new?

Every few weeks we conduct an interview with one of our amazing volunteers to find out more about them, why they decided to volunteer with GT Scholars and how their experience has been so far with us. Here’s a recent interview with one of our volunteer tutors – Alex.

Why did you decide to volunteer some time tutoring with GT Scholars?

I was looking for a chance to gain experience in teaching. The GT Scholars Programme offers a great opportunity to do so while also volunteering in the education sector. GT Scholars provide online sessions and lots of supporting material for tutors and tutees. It has been a great experience for me so far.

How important was it for you to gain support when you were younger?

Support has contributed a lot to my self-growth and development. It has given me the necessary tools to move forward and understand what it takes to succeed academically. Tutors, teachers, and professors all played a vital role in my studies, teaching me how to organise my schedule and efficiently manage my time.

Why do you think tutoring is valuable to young people?

Guidance and support are essential ingredients in order, for a young individual to flourish and become the best she/he can be. Tutoring can equip students with knowledge and enhance their self-confidence. Furthermore, tutoring provides structure by forming a functional schedule for children to follow and to maximise their potential.

What have you gained from volunteering with GT Scholars?

I’ve gained teaching experience which is a big plus for my job search in the education industry. I met new people and exchanged ideas on how to become a better tutor, along with other interesting teaching concepts.

What do you think the most important skill is to be a volunteer tutor?

You need to be patient and approach tutoring from the student’s perspective. Figure out how to tackle difficult concepts but also be in the position to justify even the easiest terms so that the student can follow.

What part of the volunteering process have you found the most fulfilling?

Watching a young mind maturing is the most fulfilling part of my volunteering experience with GT Scholars.

Alex is a postgraduate student working towards his MSc in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at University College London. He is currently a volunteer Maths tutor with GT Scholars.

GT Scholars is a social enterprise that provides tutoring, mentoring and enrichment to young people from a range of backgrounds. To find out more about our volunteering opportunities, please get in touch with us via the website.

 

What will you gain from the programme?

Growth mindset Our Impact Parents What's new? Young people

GT Scholars is no ordinary tutoring programme! Our scholars benefit from improved grades, increased confidence, motivation and raised aspirations. Click on the video to find out what our scholars have to say about the programme.

To find out more about the GT Scholars programme, register your interest online at www.gtscholars.org/register-your-interest

The importance of the name ‘GT Scholars’

The importance of the name ‘GT Scholars’

Growth mindset Our Impact Volunteers What's new? Young people

When we launched the GT Scholars programme, we wanted to create a programme that would have a high impact on students’ attainment. This was particularly important in helping students from lower-income homes. We want to help students understand that they are gifted and talented. We want them to know that they can achieve their goals in school and life regardless of their current attainment or family background. Therefore, GT Scholars seemed to be an appropriate name.

However, we were met with some hesitation. People would often challenge us with questions like;

  • Why is the programme only for gifted and talented children?
  • What about average children that aren’t gifted and talented?
  • My child isn’t gifted. Can you support him so that he can become more gifted?

These questions were really useful because they helped us understand that there were many misconceptions about the phrase “gifted and talented”. More importantly, people were quick to label their children as ‘average’, ‘not really gifted’ or ‘below average’. However, few parents actually saw their child as “gifted and talented.”

For many years, gifted and talented have been reserved for the highest-achieving students in school. People often think of gifted & talented children as children that are naturally talented in Maths, English, Science, Computing, Music, Art, Drama or Sports.

However, we like to think of this from a different perspective.

We know that children can be gifted with high levels of empathy, confidence or even a high level of patience. Others are gifted in public speaking, caring for others or speaking up on behalf of others. Students can be gifted in entrepreneurship, creativity, perseverance or leadership…the list goes on.

It’s amazing when you look at gifted and talented from a new perspective. You begin to realise that ALL children are indeed gifted and talented.

Psychology tells us that when we think of children as ‘average’ or ‘below average,’. We are effectively perpetuating the problem of low attainment. The ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ in psychology explains this in more detail. You can read more about why we should get rid of ‘average’ in our blog.

If more parents and teachers could see their child’s potential to be a lawyer or a scientist, they would probably have a very different approach when dealing with challenging subjects. Likewise, when children see that their parents and teachers believe in them, they automatically approach things very differently.

Too many parents or teachers think of children as ‘average’ or ‘below average’ – it is no wonder that children continue to get ‘average’ grades.

So we would like to challenge you to rethink the phrase “gifted and talented”.

When we as parents, teachers, tutors and mentors begin to accept each child as gifted and talented and embrace their individual talents, only then will we begin to see just how amazing they really are!

We’ve won the Lloyds Start-up award from School for Social Entrepreneurs!

We’ve won the Lloyds Start-up award from School for Social Entrepreneurs!

Our Impact

We’re pleased to announce that The GT Scholar’s Programme recently won the Lloyds Start-up Award from School for Social Entrepreneurs!

What is the Lloyd Start-up Award & The School for Social Entrepreneurs?

Launched in April 2012, the Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Programme is a partnership between SSE (School for Social Entrepreneurs), Lloyds Bank and The Big Lottery Fund. The award provides funding, mentoring, and training to social enterprises and social entrepreneurs who want to make a huge impact. We are incredibly grateful for this award; we know it will make a huge difference in expanding our offering.

How Will This Help GT Scholars?

This is a huge achievement for us. The grant will help us reach out to new parents and students. In addition, it will help us extend the enrichment programme to students already on the programme.

The Story of GT Scholars

The GT Scholars Programme was founded in November 2013. Temi Kamson, a former engineer turned teacher founded GT Scholars to support young people in her local neighbourhood. Temi established the programme while working as a teacher and noticed that many of the young people and parents that approached her for after-school tutoring were on free school meals or in low-income homes.

However,  they didn’t qualify for support because their grades were too high (e.g. a C-grade).  Secondly, they didn’t qualify if their household income was too high (e.g. a single-parent household with an income of £17,000, which is just above the Free School Meals threshold). Lastly, young people couldn’t receive support if the school didn’t have the funding to place them on a programme.

Therefore, The GT Scholars Programme was established to ensure that any young person could access support and didn’t have to live in the right neighbourhood, go to the right school, have the right household income and have the right grades to qualify for support. You can read more about the story of GT Scholars here.