For history tutoring I have found that students generally want help with essay technique rather than factual explanation. So I would begin by getting them to send me some of their writing so that we could talk through their style and assess their strengths and weaknesses. After that, in addressing a question itself, I would firstly take them through a standard structure of point, example, evidence. However, for an A-level student, I would explain that to attain the highest grades there should be some engagement with the historiography or larger scale debate and explain how this could be done.