Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
Professor Curie
Lab rigour. Every claim wants a reason and an exception.
Chemistry clicks when you can picture what the atoms are doing. Curie builds that mental picture first — before any formula.
Named after Marie Curie, the only person ever to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. Curie shows you the picture before the formula.
How Prof Curie teaches.
Most tutors would just show the steps. Watch Prof Curie refuse — and make the answer click instead.
Pure water boils at 100 °C. Salty water boils at 102 °C. The salt isn't doing the boiling — so what is it actually doing to the water molecules?
getting in the way?
Good — be more specific. In the way of what, exactly? Picture one water molecule trying to escape the surface.
Lab rigour. Every claim wants a reason and an exception.
No, it won't do your homework.
Yes, it'll actually help.
If you're the one who'll actually use Prof Curie — here's the deal:
- Ask the dumb questionThere isn't one. No sighing, no judging, no "weren't you listening?"
- Get it wrong, loudlyWrong is just a clue. Try as many times as you need — nobody's counting.
- Your pace, your callRace ahead or take it slow. There's no class to keep up with.
- Nobody's watchingNo marks, no report home. Just you and the problem.
The KS3 chemistry map — not a year-by-year checklist.
KS3 chemistry isn't a list ticked off term by term. It's one connected landscape — 6 strands that feed each other. Prof Curie treats all three years as a whole, and lets your child roam it by curiosity: circling back, leaping ahead, following whatever grips them.
- Particles & their behaviour
- The particle model of matter
- Solids, liquids & gases
- Changes of state & energy
- Diffusion & gas pressure
- Density explained by spacing
- Atoms, elements & compounds
- Atoms, elements & molecules
- Compounds & chemical formulae
- Mixtures vs pure substances
- Separating mixtures (filtering, distilling, chromatography)
- Conservation of mass
- Chemical reactions
- Word & symbol equations
- Combustion & oxidation
- Thermal decomposition
- Displacement & metal reactivity
- Energy: exothermic & endothermic
- Catalysts
- Acids, alkalis & salts
- The pH scale & indicators
- Acids, alkalis & neutralisation
- Making salts
- Everyday acids & bases
- The periodic table
- Metals vs non-metals
- Groups, periods & patterns
- The reactive group 1 metals
- The halogens & noble gases
- Predicting properties from position
- Earth, materials & atmosphere
- The structure of the Earth
- The rock cycle & rock types
- The carbon cycle & combustion
- Composition of the atmosphere
- Recycling & finite resources
Prof Curie teaches the links between these strands — not six separate boxes to tick. Every strand the national curriculum requires, mapped as one whole; most parents have never seen it laid out like this. (Want it pinned to one school's exact plan instead? That's aitutors for Schools.)
Ideas don't live in one subject.
Prof Curie points out the links most tutors miss:
Chemistry isn't a set of facts to memorise — it's the rulebook for everything your child can touch, taste, burn or breathe. Curie makes that rulebook visible.
Prof Curie is part of one faculty.
Not eight separate chatbots — one team that shares what it learns about your child, with the Mentor asking what their week really looks like before the week's work begins.
Energy-aware — in a red week, the answer is rest. We watch wellbeing; we're not a mental-health service. Any sign of distress → Childline 0800 1111.
Adapts to your child.
However your child learns best — chatty or quiet, quick or careful, into football or fan-fiction — Prof Curie meets them there, and still won't do the work for them.
From the blog
- Models-First Chemistry: How Prof Curie Teaches the Picture Before the NumbersBohr atoms, particle diagrams, equation skeletons. How Prof Curie uses visual models to make KS3 chemistry land before introducing ratios, moles, and stoichiometry.
- The KS3 Chemistry Vocabulary Cliff (And How Prof Curie Climbs It With Your Child)Ion. Isotope. Mole. Oxidation. Displacement. KS3 chemistry vocabulary is a cliff most students slide off. Here's how Prof Curie front-loads the words that unlock everything else.
- RSC Top of the Bench: One of the Few Chemistry Competitions a Year 9 Can EnterTop of the Bench is the Royal Society of Chemistry's team competition — practical and theory chemistry, with a school team spanning Years 9 to 11. It's a rare chance for a KS3 chemist to compete.
Meet Professor Curie — and the whole faculty.
The demo meets one tutor free; PRO adds a named human Coach for the subject you choose.