As a highly experienced academic tutor and qualified secondary teacher, I understand the pressures of the modern GCSE and A Level courses.

Maths/physics/chemistry/biology are definitely not ‘easy’! A core maxim of mine is ‘the best things in life are not easy’.

Furthermore whilst teaching these subjects throughout the coronavirus pandemic, I noticed a worrying trend.

Simply put: I couldn’t see a sizeable portion of my students being properly prepared for the return of full exam’s in the 2021/22 academic year.

Unsurprisingly, remote learning during the school closures has, overall, been mediocre at best.

So I analysed what could be done; what’s the pattern and what’s likely to happen?

  • Being honest, many of us teachers are wary of future adjustments promised by the Department of Education. This came about following the infamous summer 2020 Ofqual algorithm. I shared the sharing the anguish of my Year 13 tutees awaiting their A Level results.

  • Most soberingly, I’ve seen first hand that these school closures have (more often than not) created long term problems. Years 7,8,9 etc have had sizeable disruptions to the learning. Maths and science reward strong foundations perhaps more than any other subjects. Truthfully, there is little to no ‘headroom’ within a given department’s teaching times – trust me! It doesn’t matter which part of the country, or state or independent or grammar school you look at. Regrettably there is precious little time to catch up.