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Advanced Higher is closer to first-year university than to Higher. Small-group tuition with Lynsey Robinson, a qualified Chemistry teacher and SQA marker with over 20 years' experience at this level.
Advanced Higher asks for something Higher never quite does: genuine independence. Pupils are expected to reason from principles, handle unfamiliar problems without a worked template, and carry out a substantial project largely under their own steam.
The content is also more abstract. Orbitals, thermodynamics and reaction mechanisms are the point at which Chemistry stops being describable in everyday terms, and pupils who got through Higher on strong memory often find that approach stops working.
Classes at this level are as much about how to think as what to know — and with no more than five pupils, there is room for the long discussions that this material genuinely needs.
Classes follow the SQA course through the year, then shift to past papers and exam technique as the exam approaches.
Course content follows the current SQA specification. Ask about the current year's arrangements.
Never more than five. Everyone gets asked, everyone gets heard, and nobody sits quietly at the back not understanding.
Lynsey marks for the SQA. Pupils learn how marks are actually awarded, and the phrasing that quietly loses them.
Exam technique is taught explicitly — how to read the question, how to structure an answer, how to handle the open-ended ones.
This class suits pupils taking Advanced Higher Chemistry, particularly those heading for Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy or a Chemistry-related degree, where the grade carries real weight.
It is also the right place for a capable pupil who is finding that the study habits which carried them through Higher are no longer enough — which is extremely common at this level and not a sign of anything going wrong.
Support with the project is included. It is worth a substantial share of the final award and is the part pupils most often underestimate.
Building the foundations, and the year that decides how hard Higher feels.
The step most pupils find hardest — and the one that matters most for university.