Dr Saba Qummer

Teaching

Saba has seven years' teaching experience at school and university level, including two years in Scottish secondary schools. She is registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) and is a member of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme.

Teaching at both levels shapes how she tutors. In school she sees which topics pupils find hardest and how the Scottish exams are marked. At university she taught the mathematics that Advanced Higher leads into, so she knows what pupils will need next.

Research

Saba's PhD research studied how dynamical dark energy models affect the expansion of the universe. She has co-authored 10 peer-reviewed papers in journals including The European Physical Journal C, Astroparticle Physics and Symmetry.

Research mathematics is mostly about being stuck and finding a way forward. That's the skill Higher and Advanced Higher questions test, and it's what Saba teaches alongside the methods.

See all 10 publications or view her Google Scholar profile.

How she teaches

Every pupil starts with an assessment, because the topic a pupil asks for help with is often not the one causing the problem. A pupil struggling with Higher calculus, for example, is frequently losing marks on fractional indices learned at National 5.

Lessons are patient and structured. Pupils do the writing, Saba asks questions rather than giving answers too early, and every piece of work is marked the way the exam marker will mark it.