Joseph

An A Level chemistry specialist. I’ve taught AS and A Levels exclusively for 17 years in one of the most successful chemistry departments in the country. With 20+ years` experience teaching A Levels, I’m confident that my skills and personal qualities will enhance your prospects.

The Advantages of Being a Specialist and How This Could Benefit You…

Working in a sixth form college since the year 2000 has allowed me to develop a deeper level of expertise than I could have done if I’d been delivering a broader range of subjects and courses in schools. There are two main reasons for this:
• Many school teachers only get the opportunity to teach one group of approximately 10 to 20 AS/A Level students in an academic year. I teach around 100 students every year.
• I teach the same topics to different groups several times a week. This means I can spend more time planning how to teach each topic and I can fine-tune my lessons from day-to-day based on how my students respond to them. Many school teachers have to squeeze their A Level chemistry planning time in between planning lessons for other subjects and other year groups. They might have to wait a whole year or two before they teach the same topic again.

Over the years, I’ve taught many thousands of hours of AS and A Level chemistry lessons to approximately 2000 students. This amounts to far more A Level experience than the average school teacher could get during their whole career. So how could this benefit you?
• I have gained extensive knowledge of the common misconceptions students develop and the mistakes they make when answering questions.
• More importantly, I’ve developed a range of approaches that can deepen a student’s understanding of the various topics and fix their errors.
• I also work closely with other chemistry specialists and we share our expertise and resources. Two of my colleagues mark for exam boards as team leaders, so I’m always kept up to date with the key marking points for each topic area, which means I can help you to improve your exam technique.

Outstanding Results…

Studies have shown that, on average, students with specialist teachers in sixth form colleges make greater progress than students taught in schools. This is certainly true in our chemistry department.
• Our students always do significantly better than exam board averages for every type of question, even though we accept students with weaker GCSE grades than more selective schools. Our value added scores are excellent.
• My own students’ exam results are usually amongst the best in the department and consistently outperform national averages for higher AS/A Level grades. In my most recent results, 20% of my students achieved A* grades compared to only 8.6% nationally.

Catering for All Abilities…

I’ve had considerable experience of stretching the most able as well as supporting students with difficulties.
• Many of my past students have gone on to study medicine, dentistry or veterinary science.
• Others have progressed on to science courses in top universities, including Oxford and Cambridge. In fact, 2 people from my classes are going to study natural sciences at Cambridge this year.
• We also produce numerous medallists in the Chemistry Olympiad and Cambridge Chemistry Challenge exam every year in our department.
• Every year, we get students with mediocre GCSE grades who go on to excel at AS or A Level chemistry. For example, this year one of my AS students whose most likely grade was an E (based on national averages for her GCSE profile) actually achieved and A.

Your Personal Learning Coach
A Holistic Approach to Tutoring..

Research shows that being bright and having a good teacher isn’t always sufficient to ensure that a student achieves great results. Some young people struggle with motivation, organisation or time-management problems and others use ineffective study strategies.

Consequently, I’ve invested a lot of my own time researching a wide range of topics related to educational achievement. This has included subjects ranging from evidence-based teaching, effective study methods, motivation, procrastination, time management, organisation, habits and self-control.

I’m regarded as something of an authority on these topics in my college and I’ve conducted staff training sessions and developed a series of presentations that are used alongside other college resources to educate our students in these matters.

I share my knowledge and resources on these important areas of personal academic development with my tutees and their parents in addition to providing help with chemistry. Acting as a personal learning coach in this way means I can help you develop an academic master plan that will benefit you in all of your subject areas.

Ultimately, the aim of all this is to enable my students to grow into independent, life-long learners, so they are fully prepared for university and the ever changing world of work.

These strategies really make a difference: a recent study showed that 85% of students from our college achieved 1st or 2:1 university degrees, compared to 74% from state schools and 80% from independent schools. This is all the more impressive given that we are much less selective than most independent schools and many state schools.

Many students find this holistic approach increases the value of my tuition enormously and it allows parents to see a greater return on their investment in their child’s education.

What You Can Expect From Me…

Extensive subject knowledge.
Tailored guidance and resources for every topic including unique presentations developed for our college students.
Access to exam questions for every topic from all of the exam boards.
Training on how to assess yourself accurately using mark schemes and how to get the most out of practice questions.
Clear, student-friendly, step-by-step explanations.
Walk-through/modelling of exam questions to show you how to interpret and approach different styles of questions.
Weekly homework tasks to reinforce your learning.
Personal academic development coaching to design an academic master plan to help you achieve your full potential.
An enthusiasm for chemistry, science and learning in general.
A non-judgemental attitude.
Patience and a sense of humour.
A relaxed but purposeful and professional approach.

Please see the end of the experience section below for comments from my students.

Availability: I teach full time and have a young family, so I’ve got limited availability. I can only accept a small number of students this year, weekends only.

Willing to travel: 10 miles

Experience: As part of my role at work, I tutor individual students at lunchtimes. The people I see include students who are having real difficulties grasping individual topics and potential A/A* students who are stuck on particularly difficult questions. Over the years, I must have worked with hundreds of students one-to-one.


I taught in 2 different secondary schools for a total of 6 years before getting a job in a sixth form college. I was the Curriculum Leader for Chemistry in my college for a number of years.

I’ve also worked as a Senior Tutor in my current 6th form college. As Senior Tutor, in addition to dealing with day-to-day pastoral issues, I was also responsible for the quality control and smooth running of the UCAS application process. I’ve also had pastoral responsibilities as a division head in a school.

Prior to entering teaching, I had a successful career in the nuclear industry as a research and development chemist. I started as a laboratory analyst and was sponsored to do a degree in chemistry after winning an award for academic achievement in a Royal Society of Chemistry graduate exam.

Student Comments...

These are some of the unsolicited comments I received from my most recent cohort of students:

“Thank you for everything over the past two years. I got my place at my first choice Uni. and I honestly don`t think I would`ve done so well in Chemistry without your help.”

“Just want to say a huge THANK YOU for all your help over the past 2 years… I was sceptical about getting an A in chemistry this year, especially due to missing paper 2, (because of illness) but somehow I`ve managed to do it! I`ll be off to vet school in September! I hope everyone in your classes have got results that reflect your excellent teaching and confidence-giving!”

“You’re an amazing teacher with an amazing sense of humour…”

I wasn’t sure whether to include this next one, but I’m told it’s actually a compliment…

“Hi joe, thanks for being a sick teacher for the last 2 years, I managed to get my firm choice at Reading.”

“Just want to say a big thank you for the effort that you have all put into all the chem. students!! …I am so very grateful for all of your hard work and your genuine interest in the students` grades and wellbeing.”

“Thanks for your brilliant teaching and for going the extra mile for your students.”

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