Bethan H Science Tutor

I have been having a lot of enquiries about spaces at the moment as we have hit the October mock exams. I am fully booked for this, and next academic year (until July 2027) for regular evening or weekend sessions!

I have some spaces for occasional sessions or crash course days. Next year I will be taking on some students during the day so if your child is off school or homeschooled I can run regular sessions during school hours. If you are interested, please message me 😊

Due to my year 11 and A-level students finishing their exams, I will have availability in July and August for some sessions. If your child would like a top up in knowledge before starting the new school year or wants a little bit of routine in the summer break drop me a message 😊

I have had a lot of enquires for September starts so I am fully booked for then but may have more space for January/April if you would like to join my waitlist.

My rates are £35ph for in person GCSE and £45ph for online A-level. Lessons are tailored to each child based on what they need. I like to cover a mixture of subject knowledge, revision technique, and exam technique.

Here’s a little overview on the lessons last week ☺️

In an online A level session we were looking at the heart and the cardiac cycle. This is a topic that I find flows better not using a PowerPoint so we started with an empty drawing of a heart and added to it as we discussed the steps.

I suggested that the student use this as a revision technique, to write down everything she can remember about the topics and their connections to each other and then check the one we did together to add anything she missed.

For one of my GCSE students we are focussing on required practicals and today we covered resistance and IV-characteristics. We discussed what he already knew about them and then I explained the experiment and common areas the examiners will ask about in questions. For example, they will often ask to draw a circuit and analyse graphs for this one. We then practiced exam questions on it.

With another GCSE students we worked on a biology past paper. She would attempt the question toon first and then we would go through her answer together. She is focussing her revision on other subjects that she is further ahead in to aim to get the grades she needs for sixth form. As a result of this, we largely work on information/skills that are found in all three papers. We have spent a lot of time on maths questions to ensure she can pick the information needed out of the paper, correctly identify the equation, and put the data in the right places. We also look at how to use what extra information the question gives you to answer questions you aren’t sure on. For example, in this question (third picture) she wasn’t sure what measurements would be taken as she didn’t remember the practical from class. So we looked back at the picture and what information at been labelled. They had labelled a timer, we discussed what this does and how time can be a measurement and did the same with the number of bubbles label.

Finally, the last picture is a slide from one of my one of my online lessons, in this one I am going through an A level paper with a student. They first attempt a question so I can see how they approach it and what content they are already confident in. With this example the question is about vaccinations and students need to use their own knowledge and some given to them from a prior part of the question to answer it. At this point if they need a refresher on vaccines we will go through the topic together, if they are confident we move straight on to the exam technique. In this question we can see that it is talking about how vaccinations protect the population from pathogens. One of the ways students lose marks here is focussing on how they help the individual. This student also said ‘herd immunity’ as their answer for the first part. At a GCSE level this is often enough to get the mark but A-level answers often need more detail, to get the mark they also have to say why herd immunity protects the population (by reducing the spread). This is something that the student already knew but didn’t know they had to say it in their answer.

Sometimes a question can have a lot of text prior to telling students what they need to do. This can provide helpful context, but can also overwhelm a student so they don’t feel like they can answer it, or cause a student to just scan read it and jump to the bottom. To help with this, annotating as you go through the question can mean when you reach the end of the text you feel more confident in what you are going to be asked about and how to approach it.

For this student, they also did a table at the top to show the differences between the radiations. She used this to check her answer to make sure that it didn’t get muddled while writing it up. This technique also helps to slow down students that speed through the question to make sure they have fully read it and don’t miss any key information.

My name is Bethan and I am a fully qualified secondary science tutor based in Milton Keynes.

My sessions are flexible and are tailored to suit the needs of the student and their family. I like to spend a bit of time each session on exam technique, as schools often run out of time to teach it, but it is so crucial to gaining extra marks. It also can be used across all topics so can help boost grades across the board. For some students that are younger or learn better by getting hands on, I also have a variety of practical experiments and demonstrations that can be done during the sessions.

I have experience working with students working at all levels and with additional needs. If you would like more information or would like to join my waitlist please drop me a message 😊

My rates are:

KS3 and KS4 (Biology, Chemistry, and Physics)
In person - £35
Online - £30

KS5 (Biology only)
In person - £55
Online - £45

If you would like to know more please comment below or drop me a message

I am fully booked for the rest of this year 🎉

In January I will be taking on 1 or 2 more students, if you would like to join my waiting list, please let me know 😊

And that’s it for the year! With the last Science exam today all my year 11s and my year 13 have finished their sessions with me. They’ve all worked so hard and I hope they enjoy their well-earned break.

Thank you guys for my cards and presents, they are so lovely and thoughtful. Your messages have really made me smile, and I’ve eaten more chocolate in one week than I should have in a year!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted so I thought I’d show some of the tutoring sessions I’ve done this week.

On Tuesday with one of my foundation GCSE students, we worked on electricity. We made circuits and used them to work out how current and potential difference are affected by the types of circuit (series/parallel) and the components in them. We also started looking at resistors and what they can be used for. We will build on this later to collect the data for and plot some IV graphs. We finished off by going over rearranging equations. The electricity topic (and to be honest most of the physics topics!) include lots of equations so it’s important students are confident in rearranging equations to get marks on the harder maths questions.

On Wednesday my session was an online Biology A level one. We covered nutrient cycles as it was due to be on her test this week and chi squared. Chi squared is a statistical test that I didn’t understand myself at all during school and my degrees, it wasn’t until I came to teach it that I finally understood it! It has lots of steps that can make it confusing but once you break it down it only really has one of two outcomes so a lot of the information stays the same each time. We worked through some example exam questions together to see the different ways they could approach it in an exam using a scaffolded sheet to provide prompts on what to do each time. This helps to learn it initially and when she comes back to revise she doesn’t need to re do it from scratch.

Thursday this week was with two higher tier GCSE students. We spent half of the session going through their mock papers to see what they did really well and any areas they struggled with. We identified topics they wanted to focus on in the future, and discussed exam technique on questions that they either didn’t know how to answer or didn’t get all the marks on. In the second half we made circuits and discussed how it can link to exam questions. For example, we measured the current at different places in a parallel circuit and a common question gives you some measurements and asks you to work out the missing one. We then did some electricity maths questions. One of the students had struggled with maths questions in the physics exam but likes maths questions normally so we tried to identify what it was about them that they were unsure on. We think it’s when the questions have several sentences so it’s harder to find the information needed. Next week we are going to practice those types of questions.

Today was with my other GCSE foundation student. They have a biology mock coming up so we went through papers for it. She would have a go at the question then we would discuss the topic and she would improve her answers. We spent some time improving a 6 mark data question. These are fantastic as they require little to none of their own subject knowledge and can be found in any for the 3 sciences. She got 3/6 first time so we talked about how to improve it and making sure she uses all the information available and she boosted her answer to 6 marks!

I am now fully booked for regular sessions for this year! If anyone is interested in occasional sessions, biweekly, or wants to join my waitlist please comment below or message me 😊

My child has only just started secondary school do they need a tutor?

It’s definitely not needed for every child but for some it can be really helpful and means they need less support in the future. If your child is complaining that Science is ‘hard’ or it makes them feel ‘stupid’ they may benefit from some extra time outside of school on it. Equally if your child loves Science but finds it a bit too easy in class it can give them the stretch they need to challenge them.

What does tutoring look like for different ages?

It truly depends on each student and sessions are very flexible but below is the rough format I tend to follow with different year groups.

Year 7 and 8 students learn some content at school that is in GCSEs, but a lot of the curriculum is designed to encourage the skills students need to become strong scientists. These include how to carry out experiments, analyse data, and form conclusions. This can help to foster a love of Science while preparing them for KS4. For this age, I tend to do sessions that cover anything they were stuck on in class but we also plan, carry out, and review experiments. There are lots of experiments that can be done at home (with no mess I promise!). This means students can learn the skills they need without the high pressure of exam preparation.

It is now common for students to start GCSE content in year 9. The pictures below show part of the science curriculum for one of the local schools. In Year 9 students cover important basics across the 3 sciences that they need to understand to move onto the harder content in Year 10 and 11. In this example you can see that students need the skills for using a microscope and their knowledge of cells from Year 9 to help them in the Cell Biology module in year 11. Because of this I like to focus on subject knowledge (and the occasional experiment!) in year 9 tutoring. We cover anything students are stuck on in class but also cover topics they haven’t got to yet, so when they come to it in class they feel more prepared and can focus on asking the teacher for support on the harder content. At this point we can do some exam technique practise but this is down to what each individual is ready for.

In KS4 and 5 (years 10 - 13) sessions are more focussed on subject knowledge, revision techniques and exam technique. At this point students will be given semi regular tests at school and this can make them feel like they are failing and can’t keep up. They often need reassurances that they are able to do it and to have the content broken down into smaller easy to understand bits. Lots of students get understandably frustrated when they understand the Science but can’t understand what an exam question is asking from them. Because of this we spend time each session on exam skills with how to interpret questions and where to gain marks.

If you want to organise a session please comment below or message me.

**Now fully booked**

I have two regular spaces left for tutoring this year, I know the start of the school year seems a bit early to start thinking about it but this is the best time to catch any topics students are unsure on and give them a strong foundation to build from for the rest of the year.

My sessions are flexible and are tailored to suit the needs of the student and their family. I like to spent a bit of time each session on exam technique as schools often run out of time to teach it but it is so crucial to gaining extra marks. It also can be used across all topics so can help boost grades across the board.

My rates are:

KS3 and KS4 (Biology, Chemistry, and Physics)
In person - £35
Online - £30

KS5 (Biology only)
In person - £55
Online - £45

There is a £5 discount for a 2 hour slot at all levels. If you would like to know more please comment below or drop me a message