We started out in 1997 offering predominantly science revision, hence the name: Oxford Science Studies. For the vast majority of GCSE students science is compulsory.
Most schools offer students a choice of dual award, where Biology, Chemistry and Physics combine to count as two GCSEs; or a triple award, where the three sciences count as three separate GCSEs. Sometimes the triple award is referred to as single science – i.e. each science is a separate GCSE. Just to confuse things further AQA helpfully called their dual award offering “Trilogy” – which is frankly a baffling choice of name.
All our science tutors will be familiar with all the various distinctions and will pitch their sessions as appropriate to, for example, 2nd year higher level triple award Physics, 1st year foundation dual award or whatever.
Roughly 1 million students sit GCSE Physics in one form or another each year.
We currently have 80 tutors offering this subject, many have decades of experience.
Like all our courses our GCSE Physics revision courses are bespoke and exam board and level specific as appropriate. All our exam-based courses are student-led – the student(s) in the class determine what is covered during the course. See our Student-led Revision Courses page for how this works in practice.
We cover all GCSE exam boards and differentiate between dual and triple award, first and second year of GCSE, as well as higher and foundation level exams.
For our bigger courses the physics GCSE often will be taught in small groups, typically 2-4 students, with a maximum of 6.
Although the content of all our courses is student-led the tutors will also have a list of topics that they know students often get wrong or struggle with.
From a tutor and student point of view the student-led approach is a huge advantage. Focusing on problem areas is the most effective use of the limited time on a revision course.
The vast majority of revision has to be done at home and for most GCSE students their GCSEs will be their first set of public exams. Hence, it will potentially be the first time that they have had to revise seriously. In a perfect universe they will have revised many times before, but, obviously, this is a major step up for many students.
In the case of GCSEs we are here to help students learn how to revise, to speed up the revision process, and clarify troublesome topics.
In the long run all students need to learn the skill of revising on their own, but for GCSE some assistance can be very worthwhile.
For Physics (and Maths) practice is absolutely key – it may be tedious but sitting down and solving physics problems is vital to becoming good at doing these types of exams. Just reading a physics textbook is not enough on its own. Whilst practice is essential for many subjects, for physics, maths, etc. where there is a “doing calculations” aspect to the exam, then practicing those calculations has to be a central element to any revision.
We are here to help students:
We can’t do the revision for them, but we can make it easier for them and speed up the process.
Many students do just revise for their physics GCSE at home, but we think, with our help, they will do better, and the revision process will be slightly less painful and not so time consuming.
There are some truly great (and free) resources out there; there are also a lot of awful, inaccurate and just plain bonkers stuff. A big problem for GCSE Physics students (and any one really) is knowing how to differentiate between great and deranged stuff. Parental guidance here can help – providing the parent or other adult has a reasonable grasp of physics.
The following are generally safe(ish):
Things to avoid:
Just as an example below is an image created by ChatGPT for “GCSE Physics concepts explained visually”. It’s difficult to know where to start there are just so many errors.
We can, but very rarely do, CCEA GCSE Physics. We haven’t had any CCEA applications this decade.