Why aspiring teacher Jake is a textbook mathematician

Making connections

The University of Derby is Vretta’s academic Hub in the UK and is working in partnership with academic colleagues to provide bespoke training to students in advanced numeracy. Jake was recommended to Vretta, by one of his lecturers, Ovidiu, to apply for a role in creating textbook solutions for an upcoming mathematical medicine textbook that the company were creating. Jake had the right skills and perfect previous experience teaching in a school during his gap year to be successful in gaining the role. He was able to see the behind-the-scenes process of making a textbook and was able to provide critical feedback to make the textbook more accessible to students.

Success so far...

Academically, Jake is incredibly pleased to receive a Dean’s Award for performing in the top 10% of his programme during the first year of study. This was incredibly validating and gave him additional motivation to work even harder to achieve well in future years. He was also honoured to receive a special extra commendation - East Midlands Chamber Award. This was awarded to him for being the highest achieving student in the College of Science and Engineering. This has unlocked an additional bank of support from the careers team at the University and meetings with the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce to see how they can support him in the future. He is excited to work with them and potentially gain more useful experience before officially entering the world of work.

What’s next?

Next year Jake is looking forward to writing his dissertation and currently thinking of investigating either topics related to Game Theory or the use of Escape Rooms in mathematical education. Jake has felt very supported by the academic team who have helped him balance the challenges of university life during a global pandemic and aim towards his future goals. 

"All of the lecturers are incredibly approachable and my personal academic tutor has also helped me to investigate future career options (in my case different types of school, areas to teach in etc) and has enabled me to speak freely about university life and its challenges in a safe and secure environment."