Macmillan Digital Education has made its first significant play for e-tutoring in the UK with the acquisition of Maths Doctor – a British award-winning e-learning business that is run by qualified teachers. The deal bolsters Macmillan Digital Education’s portfolio of technology-driven educational service providers, serving parents, students and educators.

Maths Doctor provides live one-to-one home tutoring via the internet, plus worksheets and tutoring videos via its newly launched mobile phone app. Company founder, Simon Walsh will remain as Managing Director of Maths Doctor to scale the business. “I am very pleased to become part of the team at Digital Education for Macmillan and look forward to continuing to run the company as Managing Director. It is a pleasure to be joining a team who share my long-term vision and belief in the future of digital education.” Walsh will report to Macmillan Digital Education’s Managing Director, Matthias Ick. “Maths Doctor is a highly complementary product that fits perfectly with our tutoring portfolio, including Tutoria and HeyTutor. Digital Education can provide the capital, resources and network to build on the great work already done by Simon to maximize student learning and engagement.” Macmillan Digital Education invests into and builds consumer-focused educational services. It is the corporate venture capital arm of Macmillan Publishing Ltd, one of the leading global educational publishers. Together, Maths Doctor and Macmillan Digital Education share the aim of raising educational standards through a hybrid of online and offline learning channels.

Maths Doctor is based at Sussex University Innovation Centre and has a network of tutors across the UK who have delivered over 25,000 live online lessons.

Together with Macmillan Digital Education it has just started a research project in partnership with all secondary schools in Brighton and Hove, Sussex. This scheme involves working with local school teachers to deliver revision lessons and live interactive teaching through a pupil’s mobile phone.

About Maths Doctor: Based in Brighton, Sussex, Maths Doctor was founded by Simon Walsh, a highly experienced and qualified mathematics teacher who has worked for both state and independent schools. Mr Walsh has a strong reputation for his innovative approach to teaching and an ability to relate well to young people and has been involved for many years in providing both traditional and alternative forms of education.

About Digital Education: Launched in January 2012 by one of the world’s leading educational publishers, Macmillan Digital Education captures opportunities in the consumer online education markets. A corporate venture capital investor and incubator, which is technology and service driven to make learning more effective and fun whilst embracing an user centric business understanding.

About Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Macmillan Publishers Ltd. is one of the largest and best known international publishing groups in the world with staff operating in over 80 countries. It is a part of the privately owned media group, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH. Macmillan provides a wide range of high-quality information through its scholarly, educational, fiction and non-fiction publishing activities. Products include journals in science, medicine and the social sciences; academic monographs; educational course materials, textbooks and online resources; as well as serious non-fiction and literary fiction.

You can read the original article here.

Maths Doctor was featured in local newspaper, The Argus, following the launch of their new mobile learning solution.

Using a mobile phone in class would usually get a pupil into serious hot water.

But thanks to an innovative new idea by a Brighton-based company, the mobile phone could soon become a key way for students to revise.

Maths Doctor has developed a series of worksheets and videos pupils can access using their mobiles.

The company, led by former Steyning Grammar School teacher Simon Walsh, has been working over the summer with some of the best teachers in the county to develop the project.

By way of thanks to local teachers for their help, the firm is making the product, which costs £49 a month, free to use for Sussex schools to help them prepare for November’s modular maths GCSE exams.

“But when they go home that expertise is lost so we aim to encapsulate all that teaching experience into their mobile.

In return the firm hopes the students’ feedback will help fine tune the scheme.

The product has been developed at the company’s offices in the Innovation Centre at the University of Sussex.

The product has been launched with all nine secondary schools in Brighton and Hove, with worksheets and video tutorials accessed on pupil’s mobiles using a QR code.

The firm is looking to develop live chat support for pupils and feedback reports on pupils for teachers.

Mr Walsh said: “When a student goes into a classroom, they have all the teacher’s experience and knowledge available to them.

“We are hoping we will see a spike in exam results for the students, especially those pupils teachers consider hard to reach, for example on the border of C and D.”

At a product launch at Varndean School, pupils got to try their hand at the new project.

Maths Doctor has been working with the school’s advanced skills maths teacher Zeb Friedman, who is also the maths subject facilitator for all the city’s secondary schools, on the project for the last 18 months.

She said: ‘The combination of traditional texts plus multimedia resources helps students to learn and focus.

“I’m convinced this will help them improve their results.”

You can read the original article here.

We’ve heard fantastic news from our students who took exams at the end of the last academic year and who are over the moon with their results. We’re really proud of each of our students and their tutors for doing so well, so proud we thought we’d share some of the feedback we’ve had.

“Les, I just wanted to let you know that Claire got an A* in her GCSE maths. Her results were generally pretty good (6 As, a B and a D) but her only other A* was in PE, where she is something of a natural. Your tuition undoubtedly made all the difference in Maths as she only achieved a C at the end of Year 10. Thank you again for all your help. I’ve already recommended yourself and Maths Doctor to the parents of one of the younger girls in Claire’s football team and will continue to do so at every opportunity ”

“Hey Esther!!! Wenna got a B!!! So proud. Her teachers had virtually written her off as a fail! Thank you so much for all your wonderful support.” She had an interview at College and she was accepted to do Physics, Biology, Psychology and Chemistry; also Latin GCSE.

“I want to thank Maths Doctor and particularly Patrick for helping my daughter Tessa complete her Maths GCSE when she was unable to attend school.
Tess got a B for her Maths and she was delighted. Patrick went out of his way to help and was good-humoured, helping her to relax and enjoy her lessons. He also made her work hard, which was a good thing! Please pass on our thanks to Patrick”

“Hey Lee! Just thought I’d let you know that I got an A in my A-level mechanics exam! I was really pleased and wanted to say thanks again for all your help as it really made a difference! Louise”

If you’re looking for a tutor to help with maths or physics this academic year don’t hesitate to request a call from one of our tutors, you could be celebrating like these guys next summer!

We are proud to announce that our Managing Director, Simon Walsh, has become a finalist for the Digital Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2012. He is one of five finalists for the Education Entrepreneur of the Year award which awards individuals for motivating and encouraging members of society to reach their full potential with the imaginative use of new and existing technology. Simon has been the entrepreneur behind Maths Doctor’s innovative maths and physics e-tutoring service for the last four years.
The winners will be announced on the 16th October. You can find out more about the Digital Entrepreneur awards by visiting: http://www.digital-entrepreneur.co.uk/

Maths Doctor’s tuition service has been reviewed by the Good Schools Guide. A member of The Good Schools Guide team used our tuition service with her daughter and together they have written their review which you can read on their website. Read the review.

In case you haven’t heard The Good Schools Guide was first published in 1986 and is now the number 1 trusted guide to schools. Their team of straight talking, independent and unbiased reviewers’ research and visit schools across the country. This isn’t the only thing that The Good Schools Guide provide, they also review tutoring agencies, offer consultancy to families on all aspects of education as well as providing advice on a wide range of education related topics including special education needs.

The home PC, the gaming industry, the mobile phone and Facebook; all of these are great examples of how engineering has not only helped us advance as a civilisation, but also as a society and it all started with Maths!

Now that environmentally conscious Governments are investing in the Engineering sector, there has never been a better time to engage in Maths and Science and drive the future forward. The government have stated that in the future it will be vital for there to be great students available from the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and maths) to shape our future.

But why would you want to study Engineering, let alone work in the industry? Well, Australia are currently looking for Engineers, so you could end up living down under, enjoying BBQ’s on the beach and earning AUD$120,000 as a civil engineer! That’s almost £80,000 a year! But what if you don’t fancy the 24-hour flight to Australia? Well the average yearly salary for structural engineer consultant is still over £40,000, much better than the national average of £26,000. Studying a postgraduate degree in Engineering could enable you to command this type of wage!

So is a career in Engineering for you? Well you shouldn’t always choose a career based on the average salary. You should think about what you enjoy, what skills you have and what skills you need to get the career you want. If you want to change the physical environment around you, civil engineering could be a great career path to choose, but with a qualification in Engineering, there are many other options available to you. You could work in biomedical engineering, focussing on improving human health, developing more accurate ways to diagnose disease, and better ways to treat it. Chemical engineers play a key role in shaping our world by creating fuel from vegetables and developing sustainable nuclear energy.

Engineering has gradually revolutionised both our workplaces and our social lives and it all started with Maths!

Author Bio: Lewis Love writes for StudyLink, the postgraduate course directory helping students find their ideal course. StudyLink has been around since 1991 providing study advice and information on studying abroad.  We list universities around the world in our course directory that allows our visitors (2.4 million per year) to research and compare their study options. Our advertisers include approximately 60% of all UK universities in addition to universities located in Europe, Asia and the South.

This article has been written by Les who is one of our online tutors and is also a senior examiner at GCSE and GCE.

As a Maths Examiner I have lots of scripts to mark and there is normally a very tight deadline to meet so that you get your results on time.

There is nothing worse for an examiner than to have to look at badly laid out work; he has to look carefully at the working to see whether any method marks can be awarded.

As a guide to whether you are setting out your work logically, you should ask yourself “Would I actually understand my reasoning if I was looking at this in a few weeks time?”  If the answer is “No” then you can be sure that the examiner will also have a problem trying to unravel what you have written.

You will get marks at various stages so make sure you write down the individual steps – at whatever level. If you just write down an answer and it is wrong you will get no marks at all, even though it might have been nearly right.

One point here – if you try to solve a question in 2 different ways the examiner won’t know which one you finally decided on and won’t know which one to mark.  Also, if you have a choice of answers the examiner will not be able to give you a mark even if one of the answers is correct.

Sometimes you may not know how to start a question off but remember – these questions are not designed to confuse you or make things difficult. One of the main points of Maths is being able to apply it to solve problems – so, questions will be asked in context and, at GCSE, will be more functional than they used to be. However, you will only be tested on the content of the syllabus – you will just have to try to recall which concept is being tested here.

If you are struggling with a question it is often worth writing down the facts you are given and, with a bit of luck, something will occur to you to help you to start things off.

You sometimes get questions where you are asked to “show that……” in other words the answer is already given.  It is nice for you to know what the answer should be but don’t try to fool the examiner by doing some working and then changing things in the middle to make it look as though you have got the right answer. This will be spotted, particularly in those questions.  The examiner’s guidance in the mark scheme is “N.B  Answer given”.  This means that any false reasoning in the middle will be spotted and you will lose “method” marks as well as the final “accuracy” mark.

Doing past examination papers is extremely useful. Try to do as many as you can.

Good luck.

We all spend so much time online, it’s important to stay safe no matter how old you are. We take child protection and internet safety very seriously here at Maths Doctor so we’ve put together our top tips on how to stay safe online.

1. Don’t give out your personal details. You shouldn’t freely give out your address, phone number, email address, full name, and birthday or bank details. Think about why someone would need this information and what they might do with it. Some sites will want to take basic information from you to sign up but be careful as to what sites you give it to and give them the bare minimum information they require.
2. Check your privacy settings & what others can see. You will be encouraged to enter a lot of personal information on some websites like Facebook. They will have different privacy or account settings so that you can stop certain people seeing things you don’t want them to.
3. Be careful what you post on the internet. Remember who could access this, your family, a friend, a girlfriend/boyfriend, stranger, teacher, future employer, the list is endless just take a moment to think, “Would I wear this on a t-shirt for the entire world to see?” or “What would my Gran think if she read this?”.
4. If someone starts saying nasty or inappropriate things stop the conversation. On most sites you will have the option to block the contact so they can’t speak to you again. Save what has been said so that you can report it. Go and confide in someone who you trust or go direct to the administrator of the site that you have been on so that you can report the person. Don’t suffer in silence.
5. It’s very easy to lie online. You may have been speaking to someone for ages online and feel that you know them really well but they may not be who they say they are. Even if they have showed you a video or a photo, they can easily be faked.

The internet should be a fun and useful tool so don’t be scared. Just be careful about who you talk to and what you tell them. If you are being bullied online don’t suffer in silence, talk to someone that you can trust. You can find out more information for young people and parents by visiting the Think You Know website: www.thinkuknow.co.uk/

Across the country A-level students will receive their results for their January exams today (Thursday 8th March). Getting your exam results can be pretty nerve racking and soul destroying if you don’t get the grades you hoped for.

When I took my A-levels I remember how devastated I was when I got my first lot of results. If I’m honest I coasted through school and never really had to make much effort to pass exams and coursework. When I started my A-levels I got a bit of a shock, I had to actually start doing some work! It felt like a huge leap from GCSE. Even after doing two University degrees I still swear that my Maths A-level was the hardest hurdle I’ve ever had to get over during my education. My best just didn’t seem good enough and with working at my part time job and wanting to spend every spare minute with my boyfriend (who looking back was a waste of time and an idiot – dad’s are always right) I really struggled to fit in the hours I needed to put in to my school work and it showed in my results. All my GCSE grades had been pretty decent, A’s and B’s with a lone A*, then my A-level results came. I opened up the letter containing my results and I literally screwed them in to a ball, shoved them away in my handbag, and cried my eyes out as I walked home. They were all U’s, E’s and D’s.

This was my wake up call, I needed to try harder and put more hours in. I needed to get BBC to get into the University I wanted to go to. I was now about to go into year 13 and needed to retake all of my year 12 exams for Maths, and some for Physics, as well as knuckle down with my year 13 work. The following January I retook all of my year 12 exams. My results for the Maths modules were far better, I had managed to drag my grades up to A’s, B’s and C’s.

It’s a gutting feeling when you get bad results. Always talk to people about your options, talk to your parents, talk to your friends and talk to your teachers. A few bad results are not the end of the world. It may take a lot of hard work and commitment from you but if you want it bad enough you can get there. I eventually passed my A-levels and got into the University of my choice.

This article has been written by a member of our head office team who is still a bit upset about her A-level results!

This article has been taken from The Guardian – Comment Is Free and has been written by Matt Parker. You can view the original article here.

From protecting ourselves against useless insurance plans to creating computer games, numeracy is essential for our society.

A report out today highlights government figures that 49% of the UK working-age population do not have the numeracy levels expected from an 11-year-old. The National Numeracy charity point out that the percentage of the workforce with insufficient numeracy skills has gone from 47% to 49% in eight years, an increase of nearly 2 million people. Putting aside questions about how 2% of the UK’s workforce of less than 60 million people can be almost 2 million, it’s undoubtedly a lot of people. But the question is: should we care?

I think we should, but for completely selfish reasons. Most campaigns for numeracy focus on the fact that a functional level of numeracy is required to survive in our modern world. Which I have no doubt is true – unless we have students leaving school with both maths skills and the confidence to use them, they will struggle in the workplace and with all things financial.

The recent payment protection insurance (PPI) problem could have been avoided if more people had the mathematical confidence to check the numbers behind the insurance they were being sold. If anyone had taken the time to calculate the total premiums for PPI, they would have seen that the insurance cost more than the possible payout if they ever claimed. Banks relied on customers not having the confidence to check their numbers.

It’s also true that students benefit from not just numeracy skills and the confidence to use them, but also the mathematical thinking skills that they develop. Learning maths is not merely about the content.

Very few people will need to solve a quadratic equation during their normal day-to-day life. What people will use, though, are the sorts of complex thinking skills and problem-solving techniques that schools maths trains you in.

All of these benefits to the individual are great, but that’s not why innumeracy levels worry me. I’m worried because a workforce with insufficient maths skills means I’ll have less future technology to play with.

All the technology around us was developed by mathematically skilled engineers and scientists utilising techniques and ideas developed by mathematicians. If there had not been a mathematically skilled workforce in the past, we might not have the computers, internet and mobile phones we take for granted today. The UK could have a strong computer games industry contributing to a growing economy, but games companies consistently complain that they cannot hire enough games developers with the required maths skills to build modern computer games. It is certainly not the only such industry to suffer.

So we need to do something about numeracy rates in the UK. We need to have more enthusiastic maths teachers in schools inspiring students and we need more parents not giving their offspring the “I was never good at maths either” readymade excuse, and instead supporting them in learning a difficult subject. Not because successfully studying mathematics at school will benefit them for the rest of their lives, but because it gives us all a stronger economy and more fun tech-toys to play with.