GCSE Chemistry · Years 9–11 · Online or in person
GCSE chemistry tutor — calculations, mechanisms, and the bits schools rush.
A matched specialist chemistry tutor, a plan that takes the moles content seriously, and an honest read on whether higher or foundation tier is the right fit. Free 30-minute trial before any commitment.
Free 30-minute trial · No card needed · AQA, Edexcel & OCR · Combined and Separate Sciences
- 50+ UK families
- 30+ specialist tutors
- DBS-checked
- Russell Group, Oxbridge & qualified teachers
- Free trial lesson
What your child gets — every week.
Three things that don't show up in generic online chemistry tutoring. Every weekly chemistry student at Legacy gets all three by default — not as a paid upgrade, not as a 'premium tier'.
A specialist chemistry tutor — not a general scientist.
GCSE chemistry is its own discipline. The tutor we match teaches it week in, week out — they know which calculation questions burn time at higher tier, which mechanism questions reliably surface in the organic section, and the recurring traps in each board's question style.
Mole calculations, drilled like maths.
Most students lose more marks on calculation questions than on recall ones. We treat the moles content with the same discipline a maths tutor would — moles equals mass over Mr, concentration equals moles over volume, percentage yield, atom economy — drilled until the algebra is automatic under exam pressure.
Required practicals as written-up methods.
Every AQA, Edexcel and OCR required practical is walked through as the exam asks about it: variables, source of error, the standard improvement, the expected results pattern. Schools often rush this. Online 1-to-1 is where it gets covered properly.
What we cover
Atomic structure, bonding, quantitative chemistry, energy changes, rates, organic chemistry.
GCSE chemistry sits between biology's recall load and physics' calculation load — and it's the subject that punishes the most for half-learnt content. The shared topic blocks across AQA, Edexcel and OCR are: atomic structure and the periodic table; bonding, structure and the properties of matter (ionic, covalent, metallic, the giant structures); quantitative chemistry (relative formula mass, the mole, balancing equations, percentage yield, atom economy); chemical changes (acids, bases, salts, electrolysis); energy changes (exothermic vs endothermic, reaction profiles, bond energies); rates of reaction and reversible reactions (collision theory, equilibria, Le Chatelier); organic chemistry (alkanes, alkenes, alcohols, carboxylic acids, polymers); chemical analysis (tests for ions and gases); chemistry of the atmosphere; using resources.
Separate Sciences (Triple) adds noticeable extra depth — more organic chemistry, deeper coverage of equilibria, harder calculation content including titration arithmetic and gas-volume questions. Combined Science (Trilogy) keeps the same framework with a reduced topic list per subject. Either way, we plan against the exact spec your child is sitting and the exact past papers from the exact board they'll see in May.
The two papers in each board cover roughly the first and second halves of the spec. Paper 1 leans on atomic structure, bonding, quantitative chemistry and energy changes; Paper 2 leans on rates, organic and analysis. Both papers can pull recall from anywhere. We drill that paper structure explicitly.
A worked example
The misconception we see most often: students treating moles as 'a unit' instead of a count.
Mole calculations break down for students who think of moles as a strange chemistry-only unit, like grams or litres. They're not — a mole is a count, the same way a dozen is a count. One mole is 6.02 × 10²³ particles. That reframing changes how the calculations feel: 'moles equals mass over Mr' stops being a magic formula and becomes obvious — divide the mass you have by the mass of one of them and you get how many of them you have.
From there the rest of the moles content unlocks: concentration is moles per unit volume of solution; molar gas volume is the constant 24 dm³ at room temperature and pressure; the number of moles in a balanced equation tells you the ratio between substances. We rebuild it as a single coherent toolkit, drill it against past-paper calculation questions from the right board, and your child stops freezing on questions that used to feel impossible.
Past-paper-led revision
What revision actually looks like with us — and why it's not just past papers.
Past papers are the single most reliable revision tool in GCSE chemistry. They show your child the exact question style they'll sit, train them under realistic time pressure, and surface the gaps that practice questions in a textbook can hide. We use them seriously — board-matched, mark-scheme-aligned, walked through line by line in lesson rather than left as 'do it at home and we'll mark it later'.
But past papers alone aren't a strategy. They're a diagnostic. Your child works the paper, the tutor marks it against the official mark scheme, and the next two or three lessons are built around the topics that paper exposed. That's where grade movement actually happens — not in the act of doing the paper, but in the targeted teaching that follows it. Most tutoring stops at 'doing past papers'. We use them as the starting point of a fix-cycle, not the end point.
In the run-up to mocks and finals, every weekly lesson is anchored to a past paper from the right board, the right tier, the right year. The tutor drills mole-calculation fluency explicitly, walks the standard mechanism questions in organic, and rebuilds your child's confidence on the practical questions they were quietly avoiding.
GCSE chemistry tutoring — frequently asked.
Ready to see what a specialist chemistry tutor changes?
Thirty minutes, 1-to-1, online. No card needed. You'll know within one lesson whether this is the kind of tutoring that's going to move your child's chemistry grade.
Questions first? WhatsApp us →