Olivia - Struggled With Maths

“Olivia is a Year 10 student who’s had longstanding difficulties with Maths. In just a few months with Genie, she’s gone up two grades and moved up a level at school. Her mum, Julie says that they are now seeing a steady improvement.

For some reason, Olivia had a mental block when it came to Maths. She was good at all her other subjects – particularly English, French and History – but with Maths, it didn’t matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get to grips with it. It got worse when she went to high school and in a class of 30+, she wasn’t getting any individual attention.

It was really knocking her confidence and she’d get frustrated, which made the situation even worse. I saw an advert in the local paper for Genie Tutors and contacted Ben at the Bromsgrove branch. Olivia immediately took to him; he showed great empathy and understanding towards her and her situation.

They built a rapport from the start – the fact that he was able to give her so much individual attention was important and helped her to build confidence really quickly. In just a few weeks, she was tackling Maths problems that she wouldn’t have been able to cope with before. Within a term, she’d gone from an F to a D in a test! I think Olivia expected a miracle and of course this hasn’t happened, but we are seeing improvements every week and Ben, her personal tutor, gives us feedback after each session without fail.

The style of teaching is completely different from school and Olivia loves the lessons and finds them fun, even though this was a subject she used to dread. The school has now moved her from Foundation to a higher level and her teacher recently emailed me to say that she’s sure she’ll be able to achieve a B at GCSE. I’m thrilled and I can’t believe we’ve seen results so quickly! We’ve arranged that she’ll attend some extra sessions over the summer which will give her some grounding in exam techniques and help her overcome her nerves and build her confidence even more. She desperately wants to be a nurse so she has to do well in English, Maths and Science. If she can get a B at GCSE Maths, she’ll be able to fulfil her ambitions and that’s priceless.