Chemistry clicked for me when I stopped trying to memorise every individual fact, and that has influenced how I tutor it now. I’ve worked with A-Level students for five years and tend to use diagrams, quick questions and lots of worked examples. Mechanisms and spectroscopy come up regularly in my lessons because they’re areas students often overcomplicate. I also keep a folder of difficult past-paper questions for students aiming for the top grades.

I started tutoring A-Level Chemistry while completing my degree and have continued for the past three years. I’m quite informal in lessons and don’t mind going over something several different ways if the textbook explanation hasn’t worked. My favourite sessions are on bonding and periodicity because there’s plenty to discuss rather than memorise. For revision, I prefer mixed-topic questions so students get used to recognising what a question is really testing.

Before tutoring full-time, I worked in a laboratory environment, so I enjoy bringing practical chemistry into my A-Level lessons where it actually helps. I have nine years of teaching experience and particularly enjoy analytical chemistry, rates and practical-data questions. I’m fairly precise about terminology because examiners can be equally precise. Students also practise planning experiments and interpreting unfamiliar graphs rather than relying only on standard questions.