GCSE Physics
Online GCSE Physics tutoring
GCSE Physics for Years 9 to 11, combined or separate. The most mathematical of the three sciences, and the one where confident students most often lose marks to handling rather than to physics.
Physics is 30% maths
Around 30% of the marks in GCSE Physics test mathematical skills — the highest of the three sciences, against 20% in chemistry and 10% in biology. A student who is shaky in maths is not slightly disadvantaged in physics; they are locked out of roughly a third of the paper.
This is the single most useful thing to know when deciding where to spend tutoring time. Very often the fastest route to a better physics grade runs through rearranging equations, standard form and unit prefixes, not through more revision of the physics itself.
The equations sheet, and the change that is coming
For the 2027 exams, an equations sheet is provided as an insert with every GCSE Physics and Combined Science paper, with the same content as 2026. Students take this to mean equations no longer need learning.
Two reasons that is a mistake. First, the sheet gives the equation but not the recognition — knowing that a question about a falling object wants gravitational potential energy is the hard part, and the sheet does not help. Second, from 2028 a restriction applies to GCSE Science: standard-demand questions asking students to write down the equation that links given quantities will no longer be answerable just by copying from the sheet. That affects students currently in Year 10 and below. GCSE Maths is not affected.
We teach the equations as recall regardless, and use the sheet as a safety net rather than a method.
Where the marks go
- Rearranging. Most equations are given in one form and needed in another. Students who rearrange after substituting numbers make far more errors than those who rearrange first.
- Units and prefixes. Kilojoules against joules, milliamps against amps, kilometres against metres. A correct calculation with the wrong prefix scores zero for the answer.
- Standard form. Unavoidable in waves, space and electricity, and routinely mishandled on a calculator.
- Graph work. Gradients, areas under lines and lines of best fit carry marks and are examined far more than students expect.
Required practicals
Combined Science includes eight physics required practicals among its 21; separate Physics has ten. As with the other sciences they are examined in writing — variables, method, error, improvement — not by doing them.
Combined or separate
On AQA, Combined Science physics is two papers of 1 hour 15 minutes at 70 marks. Separate Physics is two papers of 1 hour 45 minutes at 100 marks and adds content that Combined removes, including space physics. If your child is taking separate Physics, the extra topics are often the ones taught last and revised least.
How we teach it
- Timed questions from the first lesson. Not at the end of the course, when there is no time left to fix what they reveal. Students who only ever work untimed are practising a different skill from the one being examined.
- Work set between lessons, and marked. An hour a week changes very little on its own. The work in between is where the grade moves, so it is set, submitted and comes back with feedback.
- A full paper under exam conditions every four weeks. Same timing, same silence, no notes. The score is recorded so progress is a number, not an impression.
- Written progress to parents every fortnight. What was covered, what the scores were, what we are working on next.
- Groups capped at five, or one-to-one if that suits better.
Start with the free diagnostic
Every student begins the same way: one full hour under exam conditions, marked against the real mark scheme, followed by a written summary of exactly where the marks are going and what we would do about it. It costs nothing, and you keep the assessment whether or not you carry on with us.
Other subjects we teach
GCSE Maths · GCSE Biology · GCSE Chemistry · GCSE resits · Programmes and pricing