Vidhun Sutharsan

When I first meet a student, my first concern is to find out what their learning strategies are in order to taylor-make the best learning programme that they can. After this, I try to find out what they already know from the subject and the depth of knowledge of concept that they have. I am a firm believer in understanding concepts over just revising mark schemes as in my opinion allows the best application of content to each question, and this is a key way that I improved my chemistry grade from a 7 to a 9.

Once I am aware of their content knowledge and learning style, I will start from the basics and make sure that their content knowledge has a very firm foundation, as this ensures that they can understand the harder topics in chemistry.

During the actual lessons, I will provide my own notes to students for each topic because I want the student to have the comprehensive knowledge source that they can use for every occasion.
I will then ask the student to complete a question sheet but I insist that they do their best to show their desk while they are working in order for me to know that their work is their own.

After each lesson, I usually ask the student how they thought each session went and their confidence on the topic in order to check if I need to tweak my own teaching.

As for homework, I usually ask that they finish any work not completed in the lesson timeframe but also that they create a set of flashcards for each topic which I want them to show to me at the start of every new lesson.

One thing that I think sets me apart from normal tutors is that I like to know their entire schedule in a week and I want to help the student structure what they’re doing so that they’re not too overloaded by the added tuition.