Chemistry teacher delighted as videos reach 1.5 million views

James Donkin, an A-level and GCSE chemistry teacher at Hartlepool Sixth Form College, is celebrating after his series of YouTube videos have collaboratively reached the impressive figure.

Mr Donkin, from Roker, Sunderland – whose online guise is MaChemGuy – began making the videos over two years ago as a way of helping this daughter Anna, 16, through her GCSE chemistry exams.

He decided he could also use the medium as a way of teaching his own students and began to post them online to help them through some of the subject’s most tricky areas.

The dad-of-three said: “I am really happy as I never thought it would reach this level.

“I just started making them as some students found chemistry to be really hard and with A-level especially you need to go through things more than once.

“If you don’t get it in the lesson, you can be wondering what you are going to do, so I thought the videos would just give them something that they could go back on over and over again.

“I am quite proud of the videos in the sense that they are doing something helpful for the students.”

A chemistry teacher for 24 years, Mr Donkin has spent the last nine years at Hartlepool Sixth Form where he teaches students aged 16 to 19. His videos have now reached a global audience, with students and parents as far as Dubai thanking him for his help.

Mr Donkin, 47, added: “I have changed the way I teach now, as I set the videos as homework so they can watch them before the lesson and then I can go straight in asking questions which helps to push the students further.

“Students say they are really helpful, especially when going back over for revision.”