Tutoring HSC Science

When students start preparing for the HSC in year 11, they need to choose the subjects they will take. As, except for English, there are no compulsory disciplines, students are given quite a lot of freedom at that point.

The grades they will get at the end of the year for each subject will contribute to their final ATAR, so it's in their interest to choose the subjects they are the most confident about.

You may wonder why would anyone choose science in that situation, given that it's generally pretty challenging?

There are two main reasons for that. First, taking a scientific subject can help you enrol in promising degree programmes at university, such as informatics, engineering, medicine and many others.

Second, science is similar to maths in that it is exact. For example, in English, there are no right and wrong answers. The student needs to show their ability to analyse texts, put forward arguments and present their thoughts in an organised way.

The HSC English student's results are evaluated by tutors based on predetermined criteria but there is also a certain degree of subjectivity.

Science works completely differently. When a student solves a physics or chemistry problem, their answer is either correct or wrong. Of course, their reasoning will also be taken into account but there is still much more objectivity than in humanities.

However, even if a student likes science, they may at times have trouble with one topic or another and need the help of a tutor.

Especially, when they start revising for their end-of-year HSC exam, they need to recall theories and maths formulas that they saw in previous years at school. Tutors can help them organise their revision in an effective way to maximise their ATAR.

In this article, we will talk about the best ways for HSC science tutors to help students and make their tutoring classes engaging and motivating.

If you want to find out more about HSC tutoring in general, there is plenty of useful advice in our article on the topic.

What skills does an HSC Science tutor need?

Tutoring science to high school students can be difficult for several reasons. When we talk about science, we don't mean just one discipline but several ones, namely biol0gy, chemistry and physics.

Throughout their secondary school years, students usually study them as part of the same science course because there is a lot of connections between them and it helps get a more complete idea of the natural world.

However, in high school, scientific subjects become too complex and need to be taught separately.

At that point, students can specialise in physics, chemistry, biology or even choose more than one of them, depending on the area they want to specialise in after school.

If you want to work as an HSC Science tutor, you should probably consider doing the same thing. As each discipline has its own kinds of activities and requirements, you will probably need to spend some time getting familiar with them.

Offering clear explanations

Probably the most important skill for science tutoring at high school is to be able to explain things in a clear and accessible way.

For example, if a student is struggling with some term or concept, it will not be enough just to provide them with the definitions.

What they need to advance is that someone makes an effort to understand their difficulties and offer clarifications that will speak to them.

For that, the tutor needs to have good interpersonal skills and a high level of empathy to dedicate their time to every particular case and develop a tailored approach.

At the same time, it is possible to explain something clearly only when it is clear in your own mind. For example, you can teach a maths formula only if you know perfectly well how to use it.

Similarly, you can only get across a term or a concept that you have a handle on yourself.

That being said, if you only start tutoring and some of your students' questions cause you difficulty, that is not a reason for panic.

With time, you may discover new facets to things you thought you knew and see a well-known term in a completely different light. As a matter of fact, tutors can also learn from their students in tutoring lessons.

You can also find out more about HSC English tutoring in our article on the subject.

Give real-world examples to your students

One of the main problems of working a lot with maths formulas in science is that we may end up forgetting their real meaning.

For example, in chemistry, each formula tells us something new about a reaction or a substance. We can better understand their properties and even check our results through experiments.

In physics, we use maths methods to calculate such values, as speed, time or force, among others. They can be directly applied to phenomena around us and even used in practice.

When you give an HSC tutoring lesson, it may be tempting to overlook some theoretical details, while focusing on the problems that the students will need to deal with in their end-of-term exam.

Unfortunately, such an approach has serious disadvantages. When students only work with numbers and maths formulas they stop bearing in mind that physics or chemistry is primarily a science about real natural phenomena.

As a result, the whole subject can gradually lose its interest for them.

What's even worse, if a student solves problems mechanically without paying attention to the real significance of the numbers, they may simply fail to develop a good understanding of physical reactions that are needed to study at university.

That means that a good HSC physics tutor should never lose sight of the practical and theoretical side of physics and make sure that their student understands it at least as well as problems and maths formulas.

Only in this way can their high school science course be really useful and not only serve to boost their ATAR.

If you are interested in teaching Maths to HSC students, we have a detailed article about teaching that subject too.

Be creative in your choice of resources

Nowadays, there are a lot of resources that can make your tutoring lessons dynamic and motivating. A good HSC science tutor in Sydney or elsewhere in NSW needs to be familiar with the existing teaching materials and combine them effectively.

To begin your search, you can first take a look at science teaching resources online. There are plenty of excellent options, from websites and forums to online apps where students can get everything they need.

Due to their number, it may take you some time before you find your bearing among them but as you gain experience, you'll become able to find what you are looking for quickly enough.

Another great place to find resources for your tutoring classes is bookshops. There are a variety of books to help students prepare for the HSC and you can browse through them to see the exercises and the explanations they offer.

Once you've got enough books and web addresses in your collection, you can start using them in different combinations to achieve maximum efficiency.

It can be boring for students to solve the same kind of problems on the same topic in the same lesson. The solution can be to offer them activities of different types to shed light on different aspects of one particular issue.

That approach can be much more inspiring for students because it will make them think about the subject and make efforts to analyse what they see.

Use different media to look for students

In the same way as there are plenty of ways to find tutoring resources, there are also a great variety of communication channels to find students.

One of them is, of course, social media. You can post information about your lessons on your Facebook or Instagram page and it can spread by word of mouth among a great number of people in Sydney and NSW.

Another good option is printed adverts. All you need is to find the right places to put them. For example, you can paste your adverts in the high schools in your neighbourhood to reach your target population of students.

Finally, an excellent tool that can help you find students quickly and without too much effort is the Superprof website. On Superprof, tutors from Sydney, NSW and all across Australia can post their lesson adverts to spread information and find as many students as they want.

Thanks to our chat system, the students that get interested in your profile can contact you directly online, discuss the details of your lessons and organise their first meeting with you.

With time, you will have taught more and more students who'll leave you reviews, so even more people will come across your page. Superprof is easy to use and you can start tutoring whenever you feel like it.

If you want to find out more about the qualifications you need to tutor in HSC science, we recommend that you have a look at our article on the subject.