Lewis O.

My students always benefit from our 1:1 tutorials- I have tutored dozens of individuals across my 5+ years of full-time tutoring. I am Head of Chemistry at a private school where I teach A-level and GCSE Chemistry (as well as mentoring Oxbridge applicants). I have key insights as a marker, including demonstrating and grading 1st year chemistry experiments at a prestigious university. My sessions focus heavily upon moving away from 'rote memorization' towards a deeper understanding of subjects such as kinetics, organic mechanisms, and NMR. To do this, we spend sessions focusing on key pieces of advice and applying them to a range of exam-style questions.

Each student is an individual so obviously the tutor must be quick to detect and adapt to a specific pace, difficulty, content-focus, and style. That being said, I find that there are some common themes to my sessions. Firstly, the tutorials (typically an hour long) have a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. This is critical to ensure that the student feels confident enough to ask questions they deem to be 'too basic'. Alongside this, the sessions mirror a Cambridge supervision. There will always be an overarching theme (such as a frequent mistake the student makes, a particular topic, or a question format which needs work), and the session will involve short pauses to discuss. This opportunity to reflect on questions with a tutor is where the value of 1:1 support becomes obvious. Lastly, my tutorials will either be concept-led which tends to be most useful at the beginning of academic terms, followed by a 'flipped learning' approach as exams become imminent. Flipped learning involves discussing the additional guidance in mark schemes, marking example answers, and exploring variations of common questions from the point of view of the examiner.