Vary where you study and see how much more you learn

It goes without saying that you need a distraction free environment to study physics on your own. Sometimes at your desk at home is not the best place. Here a few alternative suggestions.

1. Your local library. These somewhat neglected places are perfect for quiet study. The atmosphere is really conducive for work.
2. Stay after school and use your own schools library. What’s the rush to go home!
3. Sit in a coffee shop and work. As long as you buy stuff these places are perfect. This is quite normal in Singapore!
4. Use a train journey. This may be not that practical but I as a teacher find a half hour journey into London perfect for marking a set of work.
5. A park bench. Finding an open space such as a park or tow path is perfect for some gentle reading. Most people read novels but take your physics textbook instead. Leave your phone behind and you will be amazed at how much you learn.

If you have any other suggestions then please let me know by commenting.

Buy yourself some decent A level Physics text books

You are literally spoilt for choice when it comes to A level Physics resources.

In my opinion you should not fall into the following traps.

1. Use a revision guide as your main textbook. I see this all the time. I won’t say it but in one word the education system has been taken over with ‘see pee gee’. In many cases this type of book is too simple for you to read around the subject. I doubt these books will allow you access to the higher grades. They may however delude you into thinking in this way.
2. Be limited by examination board course specific textbooks. E.g ‘exclusively endorsed AQA Physics’. These books although good focus too much on what you just need to know. What’s wrong with that then? Nothing really but to get really good grades you need to read more generally. You are studying physics not examination board physics. You need to approach the topics from different angles using different textbooks.

My advice would be to visit a large book store. Foyles in London is great or any large Waterstones will do. Go to the school science section and find the A level Physics books. Spend time flicking through the general textbooks. These will vary greatly from thick with no pictures to thick with a few pictures. If you can afford it buy three of them all a bit different. These books will be invaluable for your study.

Things to look for in an A Level Physics Textbook

In my opinion these things make for a good A level Physics textbook.

1. Only one author – sometimes they are written by a couple or more which could signify an old textbook with a few add ons to make it modern and fit into 2014 specifications.
2. Plenty of questions. A level Maths has the advantage of having text books with loads of questions in them. In Physics we are not as fortunate. You need to find a text book with a goodly amount of questions in them.
3. Answers given but not just numerical answers. Text books have the habit of giving answers with no workings out. The very thing we criticise students for. Unfortunately these answers in the back of books are sometimes wrong destroying the confidence of some students.
4. Plenty of description and clearly labelled diagrams. If you are to truly understand physics you need it explained to you clearly. A few chatty sentences won’t do much for your understanding.
5. This is perhaps not too essential and maybe just a thing of mine. In suggests practically the book should give the correct values to use. For instance a circuit diagram showing a resistor and capacitor is not much use unless it states for example you need a 100 Ohm capacitor.

I’m sure there are more than this. Please comment with what you like to see in a textbook.

Highlighted examiners report overview for OCR Physics A January 2013

You can learn a lot from Examiners reports.

Most Centres have once again made excellent use of past papers, marking schemes and previous examiners’ reports. The quality of analytical work at both AS and A2 levels showed marginal improvement.

Rearranging of equations continues to be an obstacle for some AS candidates. The recall of definitions continues to be a problem for a significant number of candidates across the ability spectrum. There was not much improvement in the quality of written answers. A significant number of candidates showed a poor comprehension of technical terms. As mentioned in previous reports, candidates must closely examine questions before answering. Using bullet points should also help candidates focus on sequencing ideas in a logical manner.

Centres are reminded that copies of the Data, Formulae and Relationships Booklets are despatched to Centres with the general stationery prior to the examination series.

Examination Officers should ensure that copies of this booklet are available for candidates in the examination. All examination scripts are scanned electronically before being marked by examiners. Most candidates wrote their answers within the scanned zones for each question.

As always, experienced teams of Examiners provided accurate and efficient marking of the four theory papers.

Some great online Physics resources

These resources are not necessarily are a mixed bag. Students, parents and teachers will benefit from these. Just spend a little time having a look at each of them.

Phet Simulations – these are amazing simulations for many of the physics experiments you do in class.

Tap Physics – lots of lessons for teachers, lots of questions for A levels students.

School Physics – lots of guides, questions for KS3, KS4 and A level.

Practical Physics – methods for every physics experiment going – lots of information here for all.

TED talks – just search for Physics and you will find some amazing talks.

STEM – you will find so many resources here. all old sources have been archived for you pleasure. All old Nuffield physics courses have been scanned for instance.

I have deliberately avoided the general revision sites that pop up in google when you search for ‘revise physics’

If you know of  a website that will benefit others then please add it in the comment section.

The Truth about A level Physics

This post is for anyone that has just decided to study physics at A level. Can I at this stage say well done. It’s a fantastic A level and will look really good if in two years you get a good grade in the subject. It is worth reading the points below before you start. These are based on fifteen years of teaching A level Physics to a whole mixture of classes of differing ability.

Here we go!

1. Physics is a tough A level and a rigorous approach is needed.
2. You need to be truly interested and passionate about the subject to excel and get a great grade at the end of two years of study.
3. Don’t use a revision guide such as CGP as your main text book. In my opinion you need to buy three good quality thick textbooks to allow you to read around the subject. Take a trip to a huge book store and spend time feeling them, reading them and flicking through them before you buy. Unfortunately I see students being over reliant on revision guides which quite simply do not go deep enough.
4. You need to be mathematical able. You don’t actually need to take a level maths to study physics but experience would tell me that students who do generally do better. If you don’t choose maths as one of your a levels then you will have to just work a bit harder.
5. Physics A level will open doors for you and is highly regarded by top universities and employers.
6. Physics is really interesting but you will hit dry topics that involve learning quite a lot of description. Medical imaging for instance is one such example.
7. Practical work in physics tends to be over more quickly than in the other sciences. You will rarely get a physics experiment to last all lesson. Sometimes practical work isn’t too convincing. Often a decent teacher demonstration is better.
8. You will not get well taught all the time. Teaching is hard and generally teachers won’t be able to do an excellent lesson every time you see them.
9. You have to be prepared to put the work in to get the results. Lessons can only give you a flavour of the subject. The rest is down to you!
10. You will find the first month or so hard going. Work hard and if you have a test then try to get as much information before hand as you can.

Please add to the list by commenting.

Controversial new grading system proposal

I’ll keep this short

1. The mark you get is the raw score I.e 45/60.
2. You will be given the exact percentage you achieved.
3. The percentage grade boundaries never change year in year.
4. Next to the grade you get in brackets the percentage of extra time you had in that examination.
5. You are given a sequence of plusses or a minuses to indicate how close you were to the next boundary up or the next boundary down.

E.g

Physics GCSE

45/80 56% D grade (25%) +

This way there is no quibbles. There is lots of information. It may hurt but I think we need to be honest.

I realise this would never happen by the way.

I’m sorry the grading system is confusing

As a Head of Department I have spent many hours in the last couple of days answering questions from bemused students and parents.

Here are just a few common questions

1. What does this number mean? What is it out of?
2. It says a B grade but how close is it to an A grade?
3. Is it worth remark?
4. I thought I was entered for an A for my controlled assessment why have I only got a C grade for it.
5. How do I get my paper back?
6. Sandra (name made up) was ill for this exam. That is why it is a low mark. Can we tell the exam board and get the mark changed?

My god it is all very confusing!

Here are just a few observations and facts that might be helpful.

1. The mark printed on the results sheet is what is know as a UMS mark. This stands for uniform mark scale.
2. This is not the raw score achieved i.e not what was actually achieved. It’s a bit like getting 7 out of 10 in a spelling test and getting a result back that is completely different.
3. Generally a high raw score will equate to a high grade but this changes a little bit year on year. One year 7 out of 10 might be a A grade, the next year it might be a B grade. The exam boards look to see how everyone had done and then scale appropriately.
4. No one ever gets to find out exactly how the scaling is done – it’s a mystery and their little secret along with probably government advisors.
5. You can find out how close you were to the grade boundary up or the next grade boundary down. The boundaries are published for both raw and UMS on a document to be found on the exam boards website.
6. You have to be careful with the truth as a student that is jumping for joy that they have full marks UMS may be not jumping as high when they realise they only achieved 80 percent.
7. Think carefully before any remarks. You can go down as well as up. It is sometimes worth having several papers remarked to increase your chances of more marks. You have more chance of going up over several papers.
8. Controlled assessments always cause a problem when it comes to results. Teachers never know what grade they are when they are submitted. Unfortunately teachers will sometimes ‘guess’ and use the previous years grade boundaries. This is dangerous and gives false hope to students. It is difficult as students and parents are persistent in wanting to know a grade. Controlled assessments can also be marked up and down from the marks the teacher submits. If anything they will be marked down as a lot of schools cheat with controls and give too much help even in the high control parts. Naughty but who’s watching. It must be like when people used to record other peoples records. Wrong but what are the chances of being caught?
9. You can get your paper back but it will cost you. Remarks are also expensive. Examination boards must be rubbing their hands together around this time. It’s all business to them!
10. If you were unwell during the exam then you must have taken action then by informing the exam board through your school.

Hope these points have given you a bit more information.

To be honest in my experience most students for the most part roughly get what they deserve and sometimes it’s best to hold your hands up and say ‘move on’ I just didn’t work hard enough.

Lastly. Please feel a little sorry for the teachers at this time as it is not easy and sometimes the answers to some questions are not easy and may need a little research.

I would love you to comment on this post to have your opinion.

Starting GCSE Physics – helpful guide for parents part 1

When your son or daughter starts a physics GCSE course or any GCSE course for that matter it is helpful to understand some of the terminology that you will hear from your child or at parents evening. 

Specification 

The specification is a hefty document that the exam board produces that tells teachers exactly what can be assessed in the examinations. This is very much the bottom line. It contains really essential information such as the names of the modules, the percentage each module is worth and of course the content of each module. It is worth getting hold of this straight away. You can print one off from the examination board in question for each subject – just make sure that you print the correct one off – simply check with the school. The specification title is probably stated in your schools GCSE curriculum booklet. 

Controlled Assessments 

These will be phased out in Physics soon but for the moment they are very much here. This is an internally assessed piece of work that is usually worth 25% of the marks for the whole GCSE. It is unlikely that your son/daughter will be given just one chance but it is worth checking when your school will be doing it/them. Make sure that you find out exactly how your school organises itself with these. They should be transparent about it if they have planned well. I will talk more about controlled assessments in future posts. 

Past Papers 

These are exactly what you’d expect. These are papers that have been sat in the past. They are all available (except the very latest one) online and can be accessed via the particular examination board in question. These are essential when it comes to revision. 

Mark Schemes

Each past paper has a corresponding marking scheme – these are the answers if you like. They are quite detailed and sometimes need quite a bit of interpretation. Again these are essential when it comes to revision. 

 

 

 

How to move on after failing AS Physics

If you are in the situation that you have failed AS Physics then you may find the following statements helpful.

Physics is hard and the jump up from GCSE is sometimes too much for some people.

The grade boundaries for GCSE are quite low so just because you started your AS Physics with an ‘upper B’ may not mean that you achieved that well at GCSE. Sorry to be blunt.

You are now in the situation that if you want to have an A Level in Physics then you will have to sit all AS exams again plus any new ones next summer. This is what it used to be like anyway with candidates sitting all exams at the end of two years study.

This year will be much more focused and you are more mature. You will naturally avoid distractions as you really want to pass well and know that it doesn’t come without hard work and dedication.

You may want to drop the subject. Only continue if you are truly passionate about Physics and are truly interested in the subject. If the interest is not there then you are less likely to work for it.

Don’t blame your teachers You will never get consistent and amazing teaching in all your subjects all of the time. Think of the lessons as handing you the baton of Physics for you to run with. If you want the top grade in a Physics then it is down to you and you alone.

If you have failed AS Physics then please do not worry. You are not the first and you will not be the last. The good news is that students can turn it around. If you want that top grade then it is in your hands. Make sure that you work harder and smarter this year!