Cross-Subject Synoptic Tutor — 90-second recaps when your A-Level lesson uses a skill from somewhere else
Cross-Subject Synoptic Tutor — 90-second recaps for the bits that aren't really about the subject you're studying
The hardest part of A-Level isn't the new content. It's the moment a Physics question quietly assumes you remember log laws. Or a Chemistry rate equation suddenly needs natural logarithms. Or a Biology practical wants you to fit a straight line and read off the gradient. The skill isn't the lesson's topic — it's the prerequisite. And the prerequisite came from a different subject, or a year ago, and it's exactly where students get stuck.
Today we're shipping the Cross-Subject Synoptic Tutor: an inline 90-second recap that surfaces the moment a lesson uses a skill from another part of your syllabus. Live now on every A-Level STEM lesson on LearningBro.
What it looks like
When you open a lesson where the AI has identified a cross-subject prerequisite, you get a small banner above the AI Tutor chat:
Cross-subject recap available This lesson uses log laws from Maths A-Level. Want a 90-second recap before continuing?
Click the chip and the AI generates a focused recap of that one skill, framed for the lesson you're on. Not a generic explanation of logarithms — a tight, 150-word recap that connects log laws specifically to how they appear in this Physics lesson, with the right notation for your exam board.
You can play it back in voice mode. You can open the full source lesson if you want the deep version. Or you can dismiss the prompt and never see it for that lesson again.
Why it's different from "ask the AI Tutor"
The AI Tutor chat answers questions you ask. The Synoptic Tutor answers a question you didn't know to ask:
"Hey, you might have forgotten how this bit works. Want me to remind you?"
For a Y12 student looking at a capacitor problem, the chat tutor is great if you already know what's confusing you. But if the wall is "I don't even know what's tripping me up" — that's where the synoptic prompt comes in. It tells you, before you spend 20 minutes stuck: this lesson is using standard form, linear equations, and the V/I/R basics from GCSE Physics. Want any of those re-explained in 90 seconds?
How it knows what to surface
Every A-Level and GCSE STEM lesson on LearningBro has been tagged by Sonnet against a 126-skill ontology covering Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology at both levels. Each lesson has two kinds of tags:
- Teaches — the skills the lesson develops directly. A Maths lesson on logarithms teaches log laws.
- Requires — the skills the lesson assumes you already know. A Physics lesson on capacitor charging requires natural logarithms (you'll see V=V0e−t/RC) and basic GCSE algebra to rearrange the equation.
When you load a lesson, we look at its requires skills, find lessons elsewhere that teach those skills, and rank candidates by:
- Same exam board (Edexcel Physics → Edexcel Maths recap, not OCR)
- Same level (A-Level → A-Level before A-Level → GCSE, unless the skill is GCSE-only)
- Confidence of the underlying tag
The top three candidates surface in the banner. Pick one and the recap is generated on demand from the source lesson's actual content — not a generic explanation, but a précis of the lesson the student would have studied earlier.
Examples that work today
We've spent the last 24 hours building and tagging this. Three places it lands particularly hard:
Edexcel A-Level Physics — Capacitors. Surfaces recaps of GCSE standard form (because μF, nF, pF live in standard form), GCSE solving linear equations (because rearranging the capacitor equations is half the question), and GCSE V/I/R basics (because Kirchhoff's laws are the foundation). Three of the most common reasons students get stuck on capacitors, surfaced before they even read the question.
Edexcel A-Level Chemistry — Collision Theory and Rates of Reaction. Surfaces a recap of A-Level Maths natural logarithms (because Arrhenius is lnk=lnA−Ea/RT), GCSE rates of reaction (the foundation), and GCSE energy changes (for activation energy graphs).
Edexcel A-Level Biology — Photosynthesis: Light-Dependent Reactions. Surfaces GCSE respiration and photosynthesis fundamentals and GCSE cell biology for the chloroplast structure groundwork.
These aren't lessons that are easy because the synoptic links exist — they're lessons that students often find hard because the prerequisites are scattered across two years and four subjects. The synoptic tutor pulls them back into reach in 90 seconds.
Built on LearningBro's content breadth
This kind of feature only works if you have the source lessons to pull from. Khanmigo doesn't really do UK exam boards. Skye is maths-only. Most AI tutoring tools assume you'll bring your own context.
LearningBro has 800+ courses across the UK curriculum, including 200+ A-Level and GCSE STEM courses tagged with the Skill graph. When the Physics lesson says "you'll need log laws here", the recap comes from a real Maths lesson on log laws that lives on the same site, written for the same exam boards, in the same explanatory voice.
That's the bit competitors can't easily replicate.
How to try it
The Synoptic Tutor is a paid feature, behind the standard subscription that unlocks the rest of the AI suite. Open any A-Level STEM lesson, scroll to the AI study tools area, and if there's a synoptic candidate it'll appear as an indigo banner above the AI Tutor chat. Three good places to try right now:
- Edexcel A-Level Physics: Electric and Magnetic Fields — Capacitors
- Edexcel A-Level Chemistry: Kinetics and Equilibrium — Collision Theory and Rates of Reaction
- Edexcel A-Level Biology — Energy for Biological Processes — Photosynthesis: Light-Dependent Reactions
What's next
Today's launch is A-Level + GCSE STEM. The skill ontology has room to expand into:
- A-Level Further Maths discrete topics (graph theory, decision maths)
- More granular biology skills (specific hormone/nervous system topics)
- Eventually: humanities synoptic links (English Lit set-text cross-references, History across periods)
If you find a lesson where the synoptic prompt should fire and doesn't — or fires with a candidate that doesn't quite land — let us know. The skill graph is hand-curated and there will be gaps.
For now: open a Physics lesson, see what your other courses have to say about it, and tell us what you think.