In Physics you’ll study topics you may be familiar with, such as Mechanics, Materials and Waves, but in more detail and more focus on the maths behind them. You’ll also study new topics such as Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Radioactivity, Gravitational Fields, Astronomy and Relativity.

We cover the AQA Physics A-Level specification. You will sit three exams at the end of your second year, two on physics content, and the third on practical skills and turning points in Physics (which covers aspects of quantum mechanics, particles physics and relativity). You will also complete the CPAC Practical Endorsement, which shows that you are competent in a range of practical skills.

Our teachers are always here to help and can arrange a one to one appointment to support you. We run extra support sessions once a week alongside lessons and also offer a lunchtime drop-in session for each year group.

We offer extra sessions to stretch and challenge high achieving students and to help prepare for further study.

This doesn’t matter at all; we have lots of students every year who have taken two science GCSEs and it is not a disadvantage.

Each year we have around 450 physics students, organised into classes of around 20. We have two modern laboratories with a full range of physics equipment.

Students take the British Physics Olympiad competitions, with several receiving certificates last year. In 2019, students also took part in the Institute of Physics Poster competition, attended IoP Manchester monthly lectures at Manchester Metropolitan University, attended the Medical Physics evening at the Christie Hospital, and we run weekly sessions to push students towards
A* grades with challenging questions.

Each year we take 40 students to visit the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, and to visit an experimental fusion reactor in Lausanne, Switzerland. We are planning trips to Jodrell Bank to learn about binary stars and Manchester University to learn about material science. These trips are reviewed each year.