My Child Is Struggling With IGCSE Physics: A Parent's Action Plan

If your child is struggling with IGCSE Physics, the instinct is to panic-hire a tutor or buy a stack of revision guides. Hold off for a moment. The fastest fix starts with finding out what is actually going wrong, because “bad at physics” is almost never the real problem. Here is the plan we would use as parents: diagnose first, fix the cheap things this week, and bring in a specialist only where it earns its place.

Why is my child suddenly struggling with physics?

Three causes explain most of it, and only one is about physics. The most common is a maths gap: rearranging equations, unit conversions and standard form trip up a student who understands the concept perfectly. The second is exam technique: they know the material but lose marks on phrasing, working and the 6-mark questions. The third, and rarest, is a genuine knowledge gap where a topic never landed in the first place.

Why this matters: the three need completely different fixes. Drilling more physics content when the real issue is algebra wastes a whole term. So before you spend a ringgit, find out which one you are dealing with.

How do I tell if it is the maths or the physics?

Sit your child down with one calculation question they got wrong. Ask them to talk you through it out loud. You do not need to know physics to read the signals.

• If they write the right equation but freeze when they have to rearrange it (say, getting f out of $v = f\lambda$), the problem is maths. The good news: the maths in 0625 is a short, learnable list. Rearrangement, ratios, gradients, standard form, significant figures. It is fixable in a few weeks, separately from the physics.
• If they explain the idea clearly but their written answer is vague, one-line, or skips the working, the problem is exam technique. Examiners pay for method and precise language, not for understanding kept in your child’s head.
• If they cannot start at all and say “we never really did this,” that is a knowledge gap in one topic, not a global weakness.

One question, three minutes, and you have narrowed the whole thing down.

What can I do this week before hiring a tutor?

Plenty, and some of it is free. Try these before spending on tuition, because if they work you have saved real money, and if they do not you will know a tutor is genuinely needed.

1. One timed past paper, marked honestly. Download an official 0625 paper, set the real time limit, and mark it against the actual mark scheme. The pattern of lost marks is your map. Our past papers guide explains where to get genuine papers and how to use them.
2. The equations, drilled to recall. Most calculation marks start with knowing the equation cold. Print the 0625 equations list and test recall daily for a week. Five minutes a day moves more marks than an hour of reading.
3. Fix Paper 6 technique. The Alternative to Practical is 20% of the grade, schools often under-prepare it, and it is pure technique that improves in two or three practice papers. This is the single highest-return weekend a struggling student can spend.
4. Stop the re-reading. If your child “revises” by reading notes, that is why nothing is moving. Improvement runs through attempting questions, marking them harshly, and redoing the ones they got wrong 48 hours later.

If marks move after a fortnight of this, the issue was technique and you may not need a tutor at all. If they stall, you now know exactly where a specialist should start.

One thing not to do: pile on more of the same. Doubling the hours of note-reading, or buying a third revision guide, rarely changes anything if the work type is wrong. And go easy on the comparisons with a sibling or a top-of-class friend. A struggling student who already feels behind shuts down further under pressure, and a shut-down student learns nothing. Calm diagnosis beats anxious effort every time.

When does my child actually need a tutor?

Be honest about the threshold, because tutoring is not always the right spend. A motivated student already at a B who just needs structured practice can often get there with the routine above plus a good revision guide.

One-to-one earns its premium in three situations. The gaps are specific and stubborn, and your child cannot self-diagnose them. They are too far behind to catch the class pace, so every week the gap widens. Or the timeline is short, and there is no room to drift. In all three, the value a specialist adds is speed: knowing within one lesson whether the block is algebra, language or knowledge, then drilling only that instead of re-teaching everything.

This is exactly what a focused 1-to-1 class is for, and why we make the first lesson a taught trial on a real past paper rather than a sales call. You see whether your child is comfortable with the tutor, and the tutor finds the leak, before a weekly slot is built around anyone. If you are weighing options, our guide on how to choose an IGCSE Physics tutor gives you the seven things to check.

What should I expect once we get help?

Faster progress than most worried parents fear, but not magic. With one focused 1.5-hour class a week plus around three hours of marked past-paper work, one full grade in 8 to 12 weeks is realistic for most students. Two grades usually needs a term or more. Paper 6 technique can lift within two or three papers, often the quickest visible win.

What you should not expect is an overnight jump, or a tutor who does the work for your child. Tutoring accelerates effort, it does not replace it. To judge whether the help is actually working rather than just feeling reassuring, use our checklist on how to tell if tutoring is working: can your child now do something, on paper, that they could not do four weeks ago?

Start with the diagnosis this weekend. One timed paper, marked honestly, tells you more than another worried month of waiting. When you want a specialist to take it from there, message us on WhatsApp with your child’s year and current grade, and we will book the trial lesson.