A girl in grade eleven on an island whose school had no chemistry teacher and had not had one for three years. Chemistry was being covered by a general science teacher doing her best with a subject she had not studied.
The student wanted to apply for medicine, which made chemistry not optional.
She joined the live A level chemistry group, two evenings a week at eight, and used the library for the O level material she had never properly been taught. That second part was the larger job: the first two months were spent behind where she thought she was, on bonding and moles, because nothing at A level would stand without them.
Her connection would not hold video in the evening. She joined in audio and slides mode for the whole of the first year, and downloaded the recordings at her aunt's house on Fridays to watch again.
She sat the examinations last session with results that got her the place she wanted. What she said to us afterwards is the sentence we repeat to every island school: she had not been struggling with chemistry, she had never been taught it.
