A bit about Dr Max

I am a fully qualified Secondary Creative Media teacher. I have a Doctorate in Education, two MA degrees, a PGCE degree and a BA (Hons) degree. I teach multiple UK exam boards i.e., AQA, OCR and Edexcel/BTEC. I am a former head of sixth form, head of media and head of music and have moved into remote teaching after developing remote working stills during the pandemic. I was put in charge of teaching other teachers how to use remote learning technologies in my last full time role in secondary education and love making the remote working experience fun. I believe in helping students to use a range of modern apps and software to engage them. I specialise in a range of subjects. Creative media, sociology, philosophy, English, songwriting, commercial music, music technology and all the primary education subjects. At secondary level I teach Key Stages 2 - 5 (7-18years old) - this includes GCSE, A Level and University entrance application preparation i.e., personal statements, exams etc. I have taught across a range of exam boards: AQA, OCR and Edexcel. I have also taught extensively at FE and HE levels including degree level. I have written two degree programmes and been responsible for recruitment and interview processes in HE. In addition as a former head of sixth form I have been responsible for helping students through the UCAS application processes. This makes me ideally placed to help students progress through the school system through to university and college level education. I am also highly experienced in working with SEN students including with autism and Asperger's. I love helping people find their voice and making the learning fun, interesting and relevant to real life. Although I teach a range of subjects the common thread is trying to make the subject relevant to the student and to the real world outside of school. If a student can understand how the subject fits in with their own life and aspirations it can help them enjoy the subject and realise the significance of why they are studying it. I have a friendly and relaxed teaching style that engages the learner and treats them as equal in the learning process. I use a range of teaching styles contingent to the needs of the student, including humanist and emancipatory pedagogical styles, and I aim to provide diverse and engaging lessons that ensure students to improve their confidence and be able to thrive both academically and vocationally. As an experienced teacher I am to provide learning to allow students to reach and exceed their potential whilst developing personal and employability skills. I have excellent subject knowledge in a range of subjects, I employ effective targets reviewing learning through formative and summative assessments in order to help students to make progress and succeed in their exams. I help students to take ownership over their education and identify areas for developments so that I can apply effective interventions. I am very patient, enthusiastic and empower my students to have personal autonomy over their learning. This is particularly important in creative subjects like media as students will achieve higher grades if they can create original media products. I love to engage students through building on their own interest areas and believe this is crucial in order to create links between the curriculum and their own experiences of modern media. I believe in making lessons cross-curricular to drive home how the different subjects in school are connected and how they have relevance to our lives i.e., history, psychology, art, philosophy and maths etc. For example, creative media has the flexibility to include multiple topics so students can draw from other subjects and interest areas in their project work. For example, there are often opportunities to link the set English texts to creative media work and to improve aspects of literacy in the written work for the creative media coursework. Students can also often bring in outside interests such as sports into the creative media practical work e.g. making short documentaries on their football/netball/martial arts/dance/music etc. I love helping people to learn and making it more fun and relevant. I enjoy helping people to express themselves and find ways to improve their abilities and develop their confidence. That learning should be fun, relaxed and relevant and that we can achieve excellence without it becoming too stressful. I aim to make lessons interactive and engaging, while . I use exam board resources, animations, apps, and video clips to engage students. I believe in helping students stay on top of their homework and coursework so that stress is reduced. I am relaxed, friendly, positive and encouraging with high standards. I think my students love the fact I help them understand the relevance of what they are learning and that I contextualise their own interests with the subjects taught in schools so that they understand how the subjects fit together with the real world outside of school. Some teachers fail to make their subjects feel relevant to the real world and I think this causes some students to lose motivation. One of my music students had a UK number 1 hit at Christmas and another student won the BTEC Creative Media student of the year for 2019. I have a doctorate in education, a bachelor's degree and two master's degrees. I hold a level 7 PGCE and am also a fully qualified teacher (upper points scale 3) with DBS. I have two decades of teaching experience and in my spare time I am a scuba diving instructor. I love helping people to learn and succeed. I didn't always enjoy school myself until I was lucky enough to have a teacher that saw the best in me and found out how to unlock my potential. This helped me develop a love for education and for learning and I love sharing this knowledge with others and making a difference in their lives. I am a PADI scuba diving instructor, I love writing songs, making music videos, swimming and watching films. I am experienced in teaching across a wide range of exam boards from AQA to Edexcel and OCR. As a former head of department I am highly experienced in dealing with all exam board quality assurance processes and how to help students succeed during exam season and the mock exam processes.