GCSE Case Study

Reagent Academy’s lessons are one on one, so I wouldn’t hesitate to answer questions and the tutors would know your academic situation better than at school so their advice may be better than generic advice given at school!

I usually ask the tutors to teach ahead so by the time the school teaches the same content, I will already have an idea of what it is to help with my studies, and the extra homework they gave and their notes helped with my exam technique & understanding. I was more interested in the subjects since it did get easier for me to understand things, so I was happy to study certain topics sometimes because the tutors have piqued my interest by giving examples or real life application of topics (especially for bio and chem), but that was maybe because I liked seeing myself getting high scores on practice questions 😅

I want to say a big thank you to all of my tutors at Reagent for helping me achieve such good grades 🫶🏻 This below would be my personal experience of when I first moved here, so I hope this would give students a better understanding! I went to an English school in HK where 85% of the time, I spoke to students and teachers in English, and my homework (apart from Chinese and MFLs) was also given in English, but despite this, I still had problems when I came over here such as not being familiar with the different subject keywords (a simple example would be British students commonly using “mean” for “average” in maths, I was slightly confused but this was one of the easier new keywords), so my tutors taught me the keywords and any gaps in my knowledge. As the syllabus in the UK is of course slightly different than the syllabus in HK, I had missed some foundation content (I can’t remember exactly, but it might’ve been sequences and probabilities/Venn diagrams) which would’ve made it very hard for me to do grade 9 questions confidently in maths. This was the same in biology, chemistry and English, as HK focuses more on reading comprehension skills in secondary, whereas in the UK, analysis skills (by extension your creativity skills are also important so you can think of good metaphors and analysis points!) are the most important as you need them in both Eng lit and Lang. I lacked these in KS3, but slowly built them up from year 10 onwards and improved my writing structure with the help of my English tutor, which helped me manage my time in exams better, and her paragraph formatting also helped remind me to not miss out on any key areas. (like my point introduction and linking it to other points/the whole novel at the end of the paragraph)

Biology and chemistry weren’t as serious as maths and English, but I still wanted to learn ahead and my tutor helped with that by providing me with notes on new topics, before making me try out past paper questions very early on, and this made me understand the mark scheme much better for biology and chemistry (for example, biology requires specific points and keywords in order to get marks and for chemistry calculation questions, even if you don’t get a final answer, you may still get a lot of marks from your methods). Because of me knowing more content in biology and chemistry before my school taught them, I found myself enjoying the lessons at school as I could confidently answer questions correctly (this just gives me a sense of satisfaction and makes me feel more relaxed in lessons as I don’t need to worry about not knowing the answer if I got picked on!)

RA tutors had prepared lots of useful notes and the layout used is easy to remember unlike teachers in school does not organize the notes very well. For example, they use long paragraphs to write the contents needed to remember, which resulted in a less efficient and less effective way to complete revision. Additionally, school teachers do not teach how should I analyze the quotes effectively in order to get high marks. However, the RA tutors taught me to analyze one quote, and then elaborate it whilst linking the analysis back to the quote and also the rest of the story. This is one of the reasons why my grades jumped from a B to an A*. Plus, the tutors taught me to “explain” the quote with general knowledge for the examiner, which allows me to show the examiner that I understood the quote and get a high mark. Although I have received a big grade jump from a 4 to a 6 in English language and a 4 to a 9 in English literature, I still don’t really enjoy English because I am a STEM person and likes subject that are mathematics related. For example, I like subjects that uses equations and numbers to present the theories such as Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. However, English Lit and Lang has taught me to improve my analytical skills, especially on characters and also people I met in real life such as in school or in workplace. This allows me to be more sensitive and alert to one’s action to conclude what type of personality that person is like. Finally, a shout out to my tutors, they have helped me all the way from Year 9 all the way to Year 11, and my grades have suddenly jumped to a 7 from a 4 and it has maintained since then. One day, I wish we can meet in person and have lunch together XD. Before, I have started tutoring with RA, my analysis essay only received a Level 2 out of Level 5, which means that it is close to a 4 or a 5. For example, I had an end of year exam in Year 9 and it is an analysis of a random 5 seen poems (English Lang). Then, I have asked the 2 tutors to go through the poems with me with organized notes and very clear analysis. The result of the exam is a Level 4 out of Level 5, close to a 6 to a 7. Therefore, RA tutors have both supported me along the way and have assisted me when I faced difficulties, leading to the second reason why my grades jumped so much.