FAQ

It's flexible, but I generally recommend an hour in most cases Even during intensive revision courses, two one-hour sessions separated by a few hours is much better than a two hour session. 

I only tutor online. I believe it is as effective as face-to-face sessions and more convenient for most students. There's the added benefit that as the sessions are recorded you can revisit them whenever you want to. I've written more about this in my blog.

The essentials are an internet connected smart device/computer with microphone and speakers or headphones. It is possible to access the sessions using a typical smartphone. Students are able to get a lot more out of tutoring if they are able to 'draw' on the screen which requires either a touchscreen device and stylus or a graphics tablet.

As tutoring is unregulated, anyone can advertise themselves as a 'tutor' offering A-Level Physics. I believe that you generally get what you pay for. By choosing me, you're getting an experienced tutor, teacher and examiner who thoroughly understands the subject, the exams and how students learn Physics.

Unfortunately I can't offer any guarantees as this ultimately depends on the effort and motivations of the student sitting the exams.   

Although the underlying Physics is the same in any A-Level Physics course, I specialise in the AQA, OCR A and Edexcel courses. I do not take on regular or exam preparation students for other exam boards or the OCR B course as I don't have the same high level of expertise in these which I believe is essential in high quality tutoring.

Although I specialise in A-Level Physics tutoring I do take on a small number of GCSE students for the AQA Physics course.

As a serving teacher I am subject to an enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check which shows that I am not barred from working with children. 

This depends on the student, but most choose to have weekly sessions during term time

I appreciate there will be times when other activities clash with our regular tutoring slot and this is not a problem. Please let me know with as much notice as possible and we can either skip the session, or we may be able to reschedule it at a different time/day.

Where sessions are cancelled at short notice (less than 48 hours) I do reserve the right to charge for these in full.

As routines often change during the holidays, most students choose to suspend tutoring and take a well earned break. I'm flexible though and am usually able to accommodate requests for sessions to continue through the holidays if you choose. This is something that we can discuss in advance of each holiday. My regular students always get first refusal on available sessions during the Easter and May holidays in preparation for their exams. 

Of course! There's no obligation if you want to reduce the frequency or even stop sessions altogether. A significant benefit of tutoring with me is that it develops student's confidence in the subject and helps them make better use of their own time to learn and practise physics. Although most students maintain the same frequency of sessions throughout, it's not uncommon for students to need fewer sessions as they develop their confidence and become better independent learners of A-Level Physics.

If I have availability, students are welcome to increase the frequency of sessions if required. 

This depends entirely on the student, how much material they want to go over and how much they've been able to catch up independently or with the help of their school. During our free, no-obligation consultation I will be able to advise on the likely number of sessions needed. As a very rough indication, 1 hour of tutoring should be able to address 3-4 hours of missed lesson time but some students need more than this.

For revision, I normally start by going through the full specification with you to identify the main areas that we need to prioritise and draw up a plan. We can then review those areas with a specific focus on exam questions and how to get the most from your independent revision. If there's a particular style of question that you find difficult, or a paper that you want to focus on, I can guide you through practice on those questions.