Miracle Maths and Mentorship

I found myself wondering today if anyone else in the world teaches Maths like I do…?

I doubt it.

I’m not saying that I’m the best and even better than anyone else, but it would be impossible for any other teacher to do it exactly the same way as me.

If you teach or tutor as a calling or as a passion, as I do, you inevitably develop your own highly specialised and individualised style, you settle into rhythms and patterns of what’s most effective for you and you end up with your own very personal go-to obsessions, standardised teachings and perhaps some pretty quirky emphases in your work that are just you.

I’ve been doing it such a long time now - over two decades - and developed a very particular interest in enabling students to think, grow and develop themselves, really in all of life, through the lense of this one subject.

The way they do Maths, in my opinion, provides a brilliant insight into how they ‘do life’. Are they rushed, panicky and unsure or steady, reliable and assured.

Mastery of Maths, as with anything, whichever level we are playing at (trying to get a pass or trying to get a 9 or an A*), gives so much to an individual in terms of their deeper personal confidence, resilience and mindset.

Conquering our demons and mastering topics that initially had us completely baffled or terrified gives us a download that we draw on in all our future life experience, a conscious or unconscious sense that we ‘can do’ difficult things, that we will prevail more often than not.

Yesterday I had an online session with a 14 year old female student based abroad who is just the perfect recipient for my teaching style, approach and ethos.

She’s a super high achiever, very bright and musical, but who also masks a high degree of anxiety and self-doubt, both academically and socially. She’s had a history of being bullied - actually by teachers mostly - and she is desperate to achieve both in academics and in music.

I feel like I have been training for 25 years to work as effectively as I did yesterday with students like this.

Every minute of our time together is reconfiguring her sense of herself, introducing her to a new way of being, bringing her into an atmosphere, a culture and a safety that is exactly what I feel she most needs right now.

And what I can teach her at this exact moment in her education will be utterly transformative at this stage of her learning journey, not only in terms of her enjoyment and performance in the subject itself, in Maths, but also beyond that in her character evolution, her vision of who she can and will become and in her broader sense of security. capability and self-assurance.

At the moment she is high on the people-pleasing side of things and as a consequence really struggles when she doesn’t get the approval.

I am working to guide her to settle down, to settle into herself in all of her life activities and to engage wholly with the process, not fixate on the result. To learn that it is all about the journey not the destination. To live in any other way is to invite in a good deal of unnecessary suffering.

When I first met her she lead me straight to some of the most complex topics she’s been exposed to in Maths, straight to things like angles in a polygon and factorising quadratics. She’s only in Year 9.

We played around there at that level for all of 10 minutes until I could see that there were fundamentals, foundational topics, that were far more pressing for us to address first and yesterday we really got to the roots of the matter.

This is where it’s at - with the vast majority of Maths students I work with - this is what I have come to think is most important, this is what has become my obsession and my very particular way of teaching:

Most students I encounter haven’t been taught simply how to be: how to be in the world, to be with themselves and to be with others - they’re like kites flying around without anyone to reel them in, settle them down and ground them.

Most kids haven’t been taught how to work either, how to study, how to revise or how to think for that matter - they’re like the brash new owners of a Ferrari (intelligence) with no idea how to drive it. They don’t actually know how to use their minds to good effect so they have many visible crashes, especially in Maths where it is all so clear for all to see (this is why so many students can become simply terrified of Maths - it’s so exposing!).

Finally, most of our children don’t clearly understand why they should be doing any of this studying in the first place. It’s never been adequately explained to them. They’re just turning up for it blindly ever day because that’s what’s expected of them, they NEED good GCSEs… (apparently?)

I know I am sitting on a teaching goldmine of insights, influence and impact that I can impart when I meet a student like this, who is also completely open to learn and open to being coached more broadly than just the subject content.

So much fulfilled in her life and learning journey so far and yet so much missing that I know can give to her over the course of the next 6 months or so.

Just in Maths terms the gaps to me in basic teaching provision - not teaching how to be, not teaching how to think or how to use the mind, not teaching students how to work, how to revise etc and not explaining sufficiently the real purpose of studying in the first place - are astounding.

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Henry Dingle

Henry Dingle is the founder of Young Fire Academy and an expert teen and parent coach, as well as a specialist tutor. He helps exasperated parents and their demotivated teens reconnect and thrive by fostering authentic relationships, trust, and accountability. With over 20 years of experience working with teens, Henry’s approach ignites motivation, leading to greater self-confidence and real-life satisfaction.

He empowers students to take charge of their learning through mindset coaching, effective essay-writing techniques and Maths helping them build confidence and enjoy their academic journey. As a parent coach, Henry supports families in restoring trust, improving communication, and creating a more harmonious home environment.