Please send me an email or use the contact form
I am happy to provide a free 20-minute consultation to discuss your specific requirements and establish rapport.
You can pay by BACS (bank transfer) or PayPal. Please note for PayPal payments, I have to add a 4% surcharge to cover their merchant fees.
Yes. It includes lesson planning time, time for marking homework, and all resources used in the lesson.
Discounts are available on block bookings of more than 8 lessons. Please email or use the enquiry form
Yes. I will tutor additional students at 50% discount (so for example, a one hour GCSE lesson for two siblings would cost £75).
*Please note this only applies to siblings that are tutored at the same time. Tutoring the brother or sister of an existing student in a separate lesson is not discounted.
I have tutored classes of up to 12 students online but am not currently offering group lessons.
No. You are essentially paying for my time, so my online rate is the same as my face-to-face rate.
No! I hate extra hidden costs so would never impose those on my clients.
I’m not your average tutor!
Seriously though, saying ‘average price for a tutor’ is a bit like saying ‘average price for a car’. Cars come in all shapes and sizes and with a range of different features. Similarly, tutors come with all different levels of experience and qualifications.
What you’re getting is:
- Unrivalled subject expertise that comes from having a Masters, PhD and a formal teaching qualification
- Examiner insights on how to effectively prepare for exams
- Vast experience of helping students achieve top grades
- Professionally-produced teaching resources
Having researched the market, I’m confident my rates are in line with tutors that have similar qualifications, experience and track record.
Please send me an email or use the contact form
This depends on what you are wanting to achieve.
If you wanted me to teach a full two-year course, it would take around 100 – 120 lessons or so delivered over a year, including time for exam preparation.
If you wanted weekly tutoring to help with areas of difficulty and practise questions, it would be on average 80 lessons over two years.
For help with exam preparation and improving exam technique, it’s an average of 25 – 30 lessons starting around Easter before exam season.
I recommend one hour per week, increasing to two hours per week during exam season.
You can call, email, text, or message me via Skype or Whatsapp.
Please note that I require 48 hours’ notice to avoid your being charged the full price for the lesson.
You can call, email, text, or message me via Skype or Whatsapp.
Please note that I require 48 hours’ notice to avoid your being charged the full price for the lesson.
Not anymore. My tutoring schedule is now based around online lessons with students in many different timezones, so I cannot fit in travel time now.
Yes, I have tutored many siblings and a discount is available for siblings tutored together, see here
I don’t recommend tuition for the sake of tuition, so you should start only when you need it.
It’s often a good idea to wait a few months after starting a new course before you seek a tutor. This will help you find your own feet and develop independent learning skills.
Yes, I have a set of terms and conditions that I work under. I require clients to confirm their agreement to these before tuition commences.
The benefits of one-to-one tuition include:
- Improves your grades
- Gives you more confidence
- Ensures you are properly prepared for an exam
- Helps you understand something you are struggling with
- Gives you a deeper understanding
- Challenges you with harder questions
- Helps you set study goals and pushes you to reach them
- Lets you catch up if you’ve fallen behind
- Accelerates your learning so you get ahead in class
I was sceptical at first, too.
I only got into online tuition because a student of mine couldn’t make it in for Easter revision lessons and asked me to do some lessons over Skype. After that, the more I tutored online, the more I came to the conclusion that it is a convenient, flexible and safe way to learn and is just as effective as face-to-face tuition.
If you’re in doubt, all the testimonials listed here are from online tuition.
You can also read my in-depth guide to online tuition here
Online tuition is an extremely effective way for students and teachers to interact. Online tuition gives you the benefits of one-to-one tuition with some additional advantages, including:
- Convenience – there’s no need to travel, so you can be tutored from the comfort of your own home
- Location – it is possible to tutor or be tutored from anywhere, including when on vacation
- Choice – you have access to a vast global selection of tutors, not just the ones in your local area
- Improved Learning – technology means that lessons are highly interactive and students are switched on, relaxed and more focused in lessons
- Flexibility – there are more scheduling options due to not having to take time to travel
- Focus – there are no interruptions in an online classroom
- Privacy – there’s no intrusion into the tutor’s or student’s home
- Safety – child safety is less of an issue compared to face-to-face tuition
- Health – less exposure to colds and flu
Tuition takes place over the internet, using video call applications like Skype or Zoom.
The student and teacher can hear and see each other, and both their computer screens can be shared. For example, I can teach from a PowerPoint and annotate it with a digital pen and the student can see everything I write.
Documents (such as past papers) can be loaded into an online whiteboard where both student and tutor can write. This allows questions to be discussed and solved interactively.
Documents can also be shared through Google Drive (I create a secure folder for each student, which I upload teaching resources to).
For online tuition to work best, you need:
- An internet connection – broadband wired or wireless
- Speakers and a microphone – built-in or USB plug-in or wireless Bluetooth
- A webcam or HD webcam – built-in or USB plug-in
Optional is having a digital pen and tablet so you can write more neatly on the whiteboard (I recommend Wacom tablets).
The speed requirements for online tuition are not that demanding and it’s very rare nowadays to encounter connection problems.
It’s recommended to have the following minimum speeds for online tuition with video:
- 600kbps (upload/download) for HQ video
- 2 Mbps (upload/download) for HD video
You can check your connection speed here
I provide revision notes, PowerPoints, question packs, past papers, trackers and revision timetables as part of tuition. These are all included at no extra cost.
Only if they are in the public domain. I will not distribute the previous year’s exam papers or questions as they tend be used as mocks.
Note that 13+ common entrance papers, GCSE/IGCSE, A Level papers can be found online, either from the exam boards themselves, or from other sites.
I tutor chemistry at the following levels:
- 13+ common entrance;
- GCSE and IGCSE;
- International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme;
- A Level and International A Level (AS and A2);
- International Baccalaureate Diploma (Standard and Higher Level).
Yes, I have a clean and up-to-date DBS certificate (formerly called a CRB check).
I subscribe to the online update service and am happy to provide my details that will allow you to login to the DBS website and view my certificate.
I hold Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), a PGCE in Chemistry (Newcastle University), a Doctorate (PhD) in Organic Chemistry (Durham University), and a Master’s degree (MChem) in Medicinal Chemistry (University of Manchester).
I am a qualified teacher with a PGCE in secondary chemistry.
Yes, it’s an essential part of assessing tuition progress. I do however try to set homework around the student’s school homework timetable.
My teaching style is very interactive and focuses on first building a firm understanding of theory before attempting to apply it.
A typical lesson would start with a quick activity to introduce the topic and recap prior leaning, followed by a short teaching phase where we review the key theory that needs to be learned. As much as possible, I will use videos, animations and quizzes to bring concepts to life.
After that, we go through worked examples together to ensure your understanding is secure, before looking at past paper questions.
I do not offer fortnightly lessons.
The vast majority of tutoring requests are for weekly lessons and it’s very hard to find another student wanting weekly lessons to alternate. There are other reasons::
- Lack of continuity between lessons
- Not being able to cover as much content
- A missed lesson means only one lesson per month
- Difficulty rescheduling a missed fortnightly lesson due to my busy calendar
If you require fortnightly lessons and are able to find another student to alternate with, I may consider this.
The EE/IA must be a wholly independent piece of work carried out by a student, so I am only able to proof-read and suggest improvements to draft reports.
I cannot provide any original content, ideas, or RQs, nor can I assist with selecting a suitable topic. The only support I can provide is helping students understand the IB’s coursework marking criteria better, so that they can themselves choose a more suitable project.
My teaching approach is focused on ensuring the syllabus is fully understood, with no knowledge gaps or misconceptions, before working on exam-style questions and exam technique. This approach improves confidence and avoids the demotivating effect of trying to apply concepts before they are fully understood.
Before tuition commences, I email students a topic checklist and ask them to highlight it according to their level of understanding and confidence in each topic. If the student has recent tests they can scan and email, or recent school reports, these can be useful to help understand how best to support them.
We would start tuition with the problem topics first, covering the theory before solving a range of exam-style problems using the “I do, we do, you do” approach to ensure understanding is secure and the student is able to apply concepts successfully without prompting. I also provide students with booklets of questions from past exams for them to complete independently between lessons, so that we can review any problems in lessons.
For exam preparation, I get students to complete mock papers that I mark and provide feedback on so they can understand from an examiner’s perspective how to improve their answers. This feedback is detailed and will help improve exam technique, avoid common exam mistakes, and give better answers.
For students targeting top grades, my strategy is to stretch understanding with higher-level material and work through the most demanding problems to develop better analytical and problem-solving skills. This helps prepare them for ‘stretch and challenge’ questions that are only accessible to top students.