Hi,

My name is Rakhitha Katangodage. I am a second-year medical student at Imperial College London and I am looking to start tutoring GCSE and A-Level Biology, Chemistry, and Maths.

I wasn't always a student who achieved the best grades in the past. I would always put in 100% effort into my work but, for some reason, it didn't always translate into good results. In lessons, I would understand everything that was going on but, when it came to exams and practice papers, I would be getting no higher than a B grade. Like many other students, I would rely on passive techniques such as reading, note-taking, and highlighting. This served me well during GCSEs, but when it came time to revise for A-levels, the content became more challenging and time-consuming and I found that these techniques were no longer effective. This was the point where I started using active recall techniques. These were things such as writing my own questions, flashcards, etc. Using these techniques I was forced to practice recalling the relevant knowledge for each subject. Since then my scores improved drastically. But it wasn't easy as I had to try and find the right active recall technique for each subject and ones that worked best for me.

What I hope to achieve from tutoring is to help students achieve the best grades that they can. During my lessons, I aim to provide interactive sessions where I will encourage students to bring forward the difficulties they have with any topics. I will also encourage them to explain their understanding of a topic before I offer my explanation, which I feel will improve their understanding much better. From there, I will introduce them to some active recall techniques and we will work on consolidating the content that has just been covered. When it comes closer to exam time I will prioritise the use of past paper questions for active recall and doing timed past papers.

During year 13, I spent a year tutoring maths students that were struggling. During this time, I learnt how to approach students with different abilities and explain things in a way that they could understand at their level. I also learnt how to maximise the benefits from the sessions, since they would only last an hour each, and how to organise sessions alongside my own busy timetable.

I feel I have learnt the skills required to become a tutor and I hope I can offer my expertise to any aspiring students that would like to achieve the best grades.