IB Physics tuition, SL and HL
Specialist one-to-one support for students who want to understand the physics clearly, approach unfamiliar problems confidently and convert their knowledge into marks. Available online internationally and in person in London.
Supporting students in the UK, Switzerland, the UAE and internationally.
What students study in IB Physics
IB Physics is organised around five connected themes: motion, matter, waves, fields, and nuclear and quantum physics. Students are expected not only to remember physical principles, but to apply them to unfamiliar situations, interpret data and explain their reasoning precisely.
Both Standard Level and Higher Level students study the same broad themes. HL students cover the subject in greater depth and study additional material, including rigid-body mechanics, relativity, thermodynamics, electromagnetic induction and quantum physics.
The current course is assessed through written examinations and an individual scientific investigation. The investigation contributes 20% of the final grade at both SL and HL.
All students now follow a common prescribed course rather than choosing from the optional topics used in the previous syllabus.
How I help with IB Physics
Build secure understanding
I first identify whether the difficulty lies in the current topic or in an earlier idea that was never fully understood. We then rebuild the reasoning carefully, so that the student is not relying on memorised steps that fail when a question is presented differently.
Turn understanding into marks
Knowing the physics is not always enough. Each answer has to match what the question is really asking: the command term — state, explain, derive — sets how much detail is needed. Alongside this, a student must show clear working, use the data booklet efficiently, and give units and significant figures correctly. I teach these habits alongside the content, rather than leaving examination technique until the end.
Develop independent problem-solving
My aim is not simply to help a student complete the next assignment. I want them to become increasingly able to unpack unfamiliar questions, select the relevant principles and judge whether an answer is physically reasonable.
Official IB Physics resources
For accurate, up-to-date information about the course, it is best to go straight to the IB’s own materials. These are the official sources I recommend.
- IB Physics course page — the IB’s overview of the current syllabus and assessment.
- IB sample and specimen exam papers — examples showing the format and style of the current examinations.
- IB educational resources and publishing — the IB’s official publications and resources for schools.
- Follett IB Store — the IB’s official store for guides, exam papers and other materials.
- IB Questionbank — the IB’s official practice-question tool (a paid subscription, with a free demo available).
Official past papers and mark schemes are provided to schools, so your school is usually the best place to ask for them. Where a resource must be purchased, the links above lead to the IB’s own store.
Preparing for the IB Physics examinations
Thorough knowledge of the syllabus content and comprehensive revision come first, but on their own they are rarely enough. IB Physics questions often combine several ideas in an unfamiliar setting, and a student may understand each topic separately and still not know how to begin. What closes that gap is working through questions topic by topic — the IB’s questionbank holds both real past examination questions and further questions of the same kind — so that practice happens under real conditions rather than as general revision.
Practising with the right questions
The questionbank is particularly useful because questions can be filtered by topic, by paper and by difficulty. A student who needs to strengthen one theme, or who wants to work only on harder Paper 2 questions, can practise exactly that rather than working through material at random.
Exam habits that protect marks
Students often become confident when a question looks familiar and begin writing immediately. I ask them to slow down: read carefully, decide what the question is really asking, then write. A short pause to plan an answer usually saves time rather than costing it.
I also treat easy questions with the same care as hard ones. A mark from a straightforward question counts exactly as much as a mark from a difficult one. Students tend to forgive their own careless slips because they knew the physics and assume it will not happen again — but it does. My aim is that a careless mistake is not made even once.
Finally, I make sure earlier topics stay alive. Physics is cumulative, and material studied in the first year is easily forgotten by the time the papers arrive, so we keep returning to it through past-paper questions rather than revisiting it only at the end.
Support with practical work and the Extended Essay
The scientific investigation is worth 20% of the final grade at both SL and HL, and it is often the part students find hardest to start. A strong investigation is not only the most elaborate one; it is the one with a clear, focused research question that can genuinely be answered with the data the student is able to collect.
I can guide a student through their own investigation: refining the research question, planning a method that will actually work with the apparatus available, taking enough readings, handling uncertainties properly, analysing the results and evaluating the limitations of what they found. Much of this is judgement — knowing how much data is enough, recognising when a method will not give a clear answer, and understanding what a graph is really showing.
For students writing a Physics Extended Essay, I offer the same kind of academic mentoring: shaping a question that is narrow enough to answer properly, structuring the argument, and making sure the physical reasoning and analysis are sound. An extended essay often reaches beyond the syllabus, so I also teach the underlying concepts directly and explain how they apply in the context the student has chosen. The physics has to be genuinely understood before it can be written about well.
All of this support stays within the IB’s academic integrity requirements. I help a student think more clearly and improve their own work. I do not write any part of a submission for them, and there is good reason for that: the understanding a student builds by doing this work themselves is exactly what the examination will test.
Urgent one-off session
Occasionally a student needs help immediately rather than as part of ongoing tuition. If that is your situation, I keep limited availability for single sessions.
Need help urgently?
This is not regular tuition. Think of it as urgent care rather than a routine appointment. A single focused session can help when an examination is close, an investigation has stalled, a lab report is nearly due, a calculation will not come out, or a regular tutor has become unavailable at short notice.
90 minutes · £150
Two hours · £190
Sessions are subject to availability and create no ongoing commitment on either side. Once we have agreed a time, I will send a secure card payment link, or UK bank transfer details, to confirm the booking.
Discuss your child’s IB Physics
Every student arrives with a different combination of strengths, gaps and pressures. A short first conversation lets me understand where they are now, what they are aiming for, and whether I am the right tutor to help. There is no cost and no obligation.
You may also want to read about how the tuition works, learn more about me, or explore IB Chemistry tuition and IB Maths tuition.