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Scholar Spotlight – This programme has really impacted me as a person
Meet Brittany, a scholar with a passion for science, sport and learning. She joined the GT Scholars Tutoring and Mentoring Programme to strengthen her skills in Maths. With one-to-one support, she’s boosted her grades, built confidence and explored interests beyond academics. The programme has helped her grow personally while supporting her academic success and future aspirations.
Please tell us a bit about yourself
Hello, I am Brittany. I am 15 years old, and I attend a school in West Sussex. I have a love for learning and sport, in particular netball and hockey. My favourite subjects are the sciences, in particular, chemistry and biology.
Why did you decide to join GT Scholars?
I joined the GT Scholars programme to develop my learning in Maths. The support I received has helped me a lot because Maths is one of my weaker subjects.
Did you have any specific goals that you wanted to achieve by joining us, and what were they?
My specific goal was to improve my academics. I wanted to at least go up by a grade, because the grade I was at that time when I did my end-of-year assessment and the grade I was predicted wasn’t one that I was happy with. That has happened because I had a recent end-of-year exam my grades improved. I’m now in grade six/seven. Of course, I would like to build it up again, but I’m really happy because I started with a grade of five, which I was definitely not happy with.
How has GT Scholars helped you to improve yourself?
I realised that my exams and school are very important to me. I knew who I was as a person, but I didn’t really look at my other interests and things outside of sports. So with my mentor, I realised that I had a love for reading and descriptive writing and that I love travelling. I was exploring different parts of myself outside of academics, which was really, really good because it’s not always all about academics.
How has your tutor helped you to reach your academic goals?
With the one-to-one intensive learning with my tutor, it really opened up the parts of Maths that I didn’t really understand. I would go over different aspects of the homework I got that I didn’t understand. We would do practice questions a lot, and she’d iron out any creases that I realised I had. If I had gaps in my learning or certain topics that I brushed over, and I was like, “Oh, I’ll get back to it later,” and I didn’t, we would go over that. Before we even realised what any of my weaknesses in Maths were, I did an iGCSE past paper, and that really opened up the parts of Maths I didn’t really understand. She took those parts and went through them with me, which really helped a lot.
How has your mentor helped you to reach your personal goals or aspirations?
I want to be a paediatrician, and I told my mentor this, and she helped me by finding different websites and stuff regarding universities and work experience. She helped me to find those websites, which are going to be very key in the future when I’m going to be applying for universities.
Also, I take Spanish. My mentor is also able to speak Portuguese, but also speaks Spanish. So we also did some Spanish together, which helped me quite a bit with my overall speaking in Spanish.
What was the best thing that your tutor and/or mentor taught you?
They taught me that there’s more to life than academics. Academics are a big part of it and something that I take very seriously. So they taught me the importance of taking a break, looking at my mental health and also just having fun, which can really help someone’s mental health and even help with the learning.
What was your favourite part of the programme?
It would be the one-to-one intensive tutoring with my Maths tutor, because I struggle with Maths. Maths happens to be in a lot of subjects, and tutoring gave me confidence and a boost that showed that I can improve my grades. Even though I went up by one grade, I’m really happy. It just proved that with more work, I can boost my grade up to where I want it to be.
Have you attended any of the live online courses or summits?
Yes! It’s been quite a while, but I remember I joined two different summits. It was inspirational to hear people’s stories and backgrounds. It inspired me to look at different career routes.
How will you apply what you have learnt during the programme to your future?
The tutoring will help with my GCSEs and any other Maths exams that I’d take. Also, with the mentoring, it will show me that there definitely is more to life than academics. I will always keep in mind to make sure that my mental health is at its best and to always take a break, which will definitely be applied to my future self.
What were your mentor and tutor like?
My tutor, Rachel, was absolutely amazing. Even though it was different conditions since it was via Skype and it was online, she did an amazing job teaching me Maths. She was always considerate, kind and very calm. Even when I would be asking questions and querying different things. She always took the time to explain and always made sure that I fully understood. I could apply what she just taught me to my homework, which was amazing because I really got the full benefit out of the tutoring.
My mentor, Eliana, was also amazing, very kind and considerate. She always did a lot of research. Whenever I had questions or we spoke about something in the lesson, she would always come back to the next session and give me something new, give me different feedback, and we’d always have the best conversations. So both of them were absolutely amazing, and I definitely recommend this programme.
Do you have anything that you’d like to say to your mentor and tutor?
Thank you, and keep inspiring other people the way that you do.
What advice do you have for a scholar who’s thinking of joining one of our programmes?
I would say just do it because you get a lot out of it. It’s honestly an amazing programme, and I definitely recommend it to anyone because it has really impacted me as a person. I’m still practising some of the stuff that I have learnt from the programme, and I’m still using it now and will probably continue to use it. So definitely I would just say, “Just go for it!”
GT Scholars is an award-winning education company and social enterprise. We run high-impact tutoring, mentoring & enrichment programmes for young people aged 11-18. If you’d like to give your child the support, skills and strategies needed to achieve their academic and career aspirations, you're in the right place!
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