Scholar Spotlight – The programme helped me improve tremendously!

Scholar Spotlight – The programme helped me improve tremendously!

by GT Scholars

As part of our scholar spotlight series, we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing one of the scholars on the Bright Ambitions programme – Laura. In this interview, Laura shares her story and says that tutoring helped her to improve her maths grades and that mentoring helped her tremendously with time management and planning for the future.

Hi, my name is Laura, I’m 15 and I’m a scholar on the GT Scholars programme.

Why did you apply to GT Scholars?
I decided to join GT Scholars because I was looking for opportunities to be able to get experience in finding work experience, build my CV so that I can find a job and just to be able to build on my future. I was on the Bright Ambitions Programme and was provided with a tutor, a mentor and being able to experience enrichment activities throughout the term.

What was your tutor like?
My tutor was Derek, and he helped me with my Maths. We worked on Google Hangouts using the interactive whiteboard so he could write something down, and I could also write something down as it is a live platform. He was really organised with what we were learning each week and especially with time. He would plan how much time we would need to work on homework & active lessons and also how much time he would be teaching me and how much time I would need to use what I have learned to put it into questions in the actual lesson.

My tutor has definitely helped me to improve in school since a lot of the work that I needed help with were things I needed to catch up on and things that everyone else in class already remembered and understood. During exam week I could really see how I improved and afterwards how my grades went up.

What was your mentor like?
My mentor was Rachel, and the first time I met her, our meeting was very informal. We got to speak very normally face to face and talk about general things. I had to catch her up on where I am and what I need to do to improve. I’ve gained some help in time management, so something I’ve always really struggled with, especially as I was in year ten at the time. It was getting harder and harder, and I wasn’t able to cope with it at the time. It was easier for me to lay out my plans and to know what I was doing when I was doing it and also how to revise.

I was able to get advice on where to go for Sixth form, especially since it can be hard to find what you need and not all resources will show every Sixth form depending on your area and how prestigious it is, so Rachel helped me to narrow down all the options. She also helped me with options for colleges and universities to consider where I’d want to go for a degree.

What did you enjoy most about the programme?
My favourite part of the program was probably the enrichment days since I got to interact with a bunch of other scholars and also just kind of apply what I’ve learned from mentoring.

So I definitely learned something new about myself. For example, we were given an interview by an employee, and I asked her a few questions and found out that I’m kind of interested in maybe doing marketing in the future since it incorporates all my interests.

How has the programme helped you academically?
My academics have definitely been impacted since joining the programme. The tutoring has really helped me in general, because I was struggling with Maths a lot. Now my results have gone up, and I’ve even been able to move up a class. Mentoring has also really helped me to be able to manage my time better because revision can be really overwhelming, and now I have a lot more time for myself and also time for homework.

What would you say to young people who want to join the programme?
To anyone thinking about joining GT Scholars, I’d say you have no idea how many opportunities you have! I still don’t know,  but I definitely know more about the opportunities out there than I would have if I hadn’t joined the programme. You’ll also be able to interact with a lot of people, make friends along the way and also ask them about where they want to go and what they’re doing right now. You could also ask them for advice on what they’re doing for more experience, what they’re doing to build their CV and maybe you can get some more help on that!

A message to my tutor, Derek:
Thanks a lot for helping me in my Maths since I was obviously really hopeless at the start!

A message to my Mentor – Rachel:
Thanks so much for all the help and sitting there writing down timetables to work out how I can manage my school time, all the time I spend on my tablet and how I can fit in my revision. Thank you for helping me with my Sixth forms and giving me really helpful websites, so thank you!

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