About

About Shakib

A qualified science teacher and practising examiner, teaching GCSE Science and A-Level Chemistry.

I’m a qualified science teacher and practising examiner with over a decade of experience teaching Biology, Chemistry and Physics at GCSE, and Chemistry at A-Level. Alongside classroom teaching, I mark exam papers for an awarding body.

That second role changes how I teach. Marking hundreds of scripts a series shows you the same marks being dropped again and again — a definition that’s almost right, working that isn’t shown, a six-marker that answers a different command word than the one printed. Those are not gaps in knowledge. They’re gaps in exam technique, and unlike raw ability, technique can be taught quickly.

So lessons here do two jobs at once. We build understanding that genuinely holds up — no memorised scripts that collapse when a question is worded differently — and then we translate it into answers that earn every available mark.

Everything is mapped to your specification and your exam board. I’ll tell you honestly where you are, what’s worth your revision time, and what isn’t.

I hold an enhanced DBS certificate, which I’m happy to show any parent on request.

The difference

Why the marking matters

Marking papers for an awarding body is not a side note. It is the reason lessons here look the way they do.

✓ Marking changes what you teachHundreds of scripts a series show you the same marks being dropped again and again — and those are gaps in technique, not ability.
✓ Technique can be taught quicklyUnlike raw subject ability, exam technique responds fast once a student knows what an answer has to contain.
✓ Mark schemes are publicEvery one of them. Almost no student has ever been taught to read one. That is a teachable skill and it is worth marks.
What this does not mean.

No advance knowledge of future questions. No confidential exam content. No inside information. Mark schemes are published by the boards; the advantage is years spent marking against them.

The method

Diagnose → Understand → Apply → Review

A system, not ad-hoc tutoring. Every student follows the same four stages; what changes is what the diagnosis finds.

Step 1

Diagnose

Before anything else we find out where you actually are. Short pieces of past-paper work across several topics tell me far more than a conversation about which chapters feel hard — including where marks are being lost, not just what is unknown.

Step 2

Understand

We rebuild the difficult concepts from first principles. No memorised scripts that collapse the moment a question is worded differently.

Step 3

Apply

Understanding is turned into marks on exam-board-specific questions, under exam conditions, against the specification you are actually sitting.

Step 4

Review

Every mistake is analysed rather than corrected and forgotten. Progress is tracked, and the plan for the next few weeks follows from what the work shows.

Let’s find out where the marks are going

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