There’s a lot of noise online.

Especially about the grinds industry. It’s an easy punching bag – a guilty pleasure in Ireland.

Well, let me address all that.

Why did I start Breakthrough Maths?

And that is something I never thought I would say.

My background is actually in farming. I did Agricultural Science in UCD. I thought I’d be milking cows for the rest of my days.

I fell into grinds by accident. I just started to teach students after my Leaving Cert. And it was always Maths they needed the most help in.

When we got the Maths right, the rest began to follow. The other subjects started to improve. Fix the hardest subject first – and that was always the Maths.

Take Fionn McCarthy for example. He was my first student. Over 6 years of grinds later, he ended up getting a H3 in Higher Level Maths. It showed me it was all possible. Read his story here.

So that’s why i started Breakthrough Maths. I felt nobody was out there focussing just on Maths. I wanted to niche down and just help students in Maths – and do that really well.

TJ, the Tutor

I’m not a mathematician. Nor have I ever claimed to be. Nor will I ever be one.

But I love teaching Maths. I love helping students to see the ‘Breakthrough’ (pardon the pun). To just see what was happening.

Maths, I feel, is very boring to learn. So many students end up losing attention and then getting lost. I know – I was one of those students.

My approach to teaching is always to bring energy to the classes. To get students engaged. Less lecturing, more active practice. Doing more questions, doing more tests, feeling the heat of a tough Maths questions.

For the vast majority of students, who just want to scrape by, the answer is irellevant – it’s all about the steps leading up to the answer.

And that needs to be said more. That’s what gives students confidence. That set of skills to spot what’s going on in a question and to be able to begin it.

What Students actually say

Read what you want online. Choose your sources.

But in 5 years of teaching, we have amassed 673 Google reviews at the time of writing. We have over 130,000 followers on our social media and over 30,000 people in our email subscribers list.

Students love Breakthrough Maths. They do – they really do.

Because it’s online, so it’s nice and convenient.

Because the tutors have energy and charisma.

Because every class is recorded so they can study with it.

Because we test students in every class, getting them used to testing.

And that’s the truth.

We march onwards.

TJ