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A Better Way to Learn Physics
Every syllabus taught here — IB, AP, A Level and other international courses — runs on the same process. It is deliberately unglamorous: understand the situation, draw it, apply the principle, solve it systematically, then keep raising the difficulty until nothing on the paper is surprising.
The point of a lesson is not to finish the example being taught. It is to leave with a problem-solving process you can use again, on your own, on a question neither of us has seen.
01
Understand
02
Visualize
03
Apply
04
Solve
05
Master
The process
- 01
Understand
Build the physical idea before reaching for equations.
Before a single symbol is written down, we describe what is physically happening. What is moving, what is pushing, what is conserved, what is being exchanged. Most confusion in physics is not mathematical, it is a missing picture of the situation.
- 02
Visualize
Use diagrams, representations and physical intuition.
Free body diagrams, field lines, energy bars, circuit redraws, graphs and simple demonstrations. A student who can draw the situation correctly has already done most of the thinking the question requires.
- 03
Apply
Connect concepts to unfamiliar situations and real problems.
The same principle is applied to contexts that were never taught explicitly. This is the step examiners actually test, and the step that separates recall from understanding.
- 04
Solve
Develop a systematic approach rather than memorizing patterns.
A repeatable process for reading a question, extracting the physics, choosing a method, carrying out the algebra and checking the result. Working with units and limiting cases is part of solving, not an afterthought.
- 05
Master
Progress from fundamentals to difficult and unfamiliar problems.
Difficulty is increased deliberately, from standard questions to the awkward, multi-step and unfamiliar problems that decide the top grades. Nothing is skipped on the way up.
From Familiar Questions to Unfamiliar Problems
The last stage matters most, and it is the one revision usually skips. A student who has worked through fifty questions of one type has learned that type. A student who can recognise the physics inside a situation they were never shown has learned physics.
Transfer is the final goal because it is what an examination actually pays for. Papers are written deliberately in unfamiliar contexts: a new arrangement, an unusual graph, a system described in words you have not met. If a topic has only been practised in its original setting, that rewording is enough to stop a well-prepared student.
So every topic is finished in the same way — explain it, use it, then meet it somewhere new. Curriculum by curriculum, that looks slightly different, and the courses page sets out where each one starts. The free resources are built to support the same three steps, and you can read why I teach this way.
Curricula
Choose your course
Each page sets out the levels, the assessment structure and the resources planned for that syllabus. More curricula will be added over time.
IB Physics
Standard and Higher Level, taught around the three papers and the internal assessment.
- IB Physics SLThe Standard Level course covers the same themes as HL with fewer additional topics, but the questions still reward students who can reason from a diagram rather than recall a formula.View
- IB Physics HLHigher Level adds depth in fields, induction, quantum and nuclear physics. Most students who struggle here are not weak at physics, they are carrying gaps from earlier topics into harder questions.View
AP Physics
Algebra-based and calculus-based courses, with attention to the reasoning the free-response section asks for.
- AP Physics 1Algebra-based mechanics with a heavy emphasis on explanation. The exam asks students to justify claims in words, which is exactly where most preparation stops short.View
- AP Physics 2Fluids, thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism, optics and modern physics. A wide course where students benefit most from clear physical models of each system.View
- AP Physics C: MechanicsCalculus-based mechanics. The calculus is rarely the hard part. Choosing the right coordinate system, the right conservation law and the right level of detail is.View
- AP Physics C: Electricity and MagnetismFields, potential, circuits and induction, treated with integrals and symmetry arguments. Students who learn to see the symmetry first find this course far more manageable.View
A Level Physics
AS and full A Level, including the AQA specification, with an emphasis on structured written answers.
- AS PhysicsThe first year of the A Level course, where measurement, mechanics, waves and electricity are established. Habits formed here decide how the second year feels.View
- A Level PhysicsThe full course, including fields, thermal physics, nuclear physics and further mechanics. Written answers carry more marks than most students expect.View
- AQA A Level PhysicsThe AQA specification with its required practicals and its own question style. Preparation works best when it is built around the specification wording itself.View
International Physics
Other national syllabuses taught in international schools and English-medium systems.
- Singapore O Level PhysicsA precise syllabus that rewards careful definitions and disciplined working. Marks are usually lost in the explanation, not the arithmetic.View
- WACE PhysicsUnits covering motion, fields, waves and the nature of physics, assessed with extended response and data analysis questions.View