A-Level Physics Tutors in Oxford 2026

A-level Physics is taught to at least three different exam boards across Oxford's sixth forms, not one shared specification. Fifteen of the city's 18 sixth forms and colleges entered GCE A-level Physics in 2024/25 — 377 entries in total — while two, The Oxford Academy and Wychwood School, entered none at all. Leading Tuition's expert Oxford A-level Physics tutors build every programme around a student's own sixth form, board and target grade.

Which of Oxford's 18 Sixth Forms Actually Teach A-Level Physics?

This page uses the same 18-provider, proximity-to-the-city coverage set as our live Oxford A-level Chemistry and Biology pages, so the numbers below can be read alongside theirs. Matthew Arnold School is the one provider where that test matters: it carries an OX2 postcode and sits close to the city, but the Department for Education's own Get Information About Schools register places it in the Vale of White Horse district, not the Oxford district. It is kept in this list on the same proximity basis our Chemistry page states and names.

Every figure above is a Department for Education subjects-entered count for 2024/25, read directly from each provider's own page on the Compare School and College Performance service. Fifteen of the 18 entered GCE A-level Physics. Three did not: The Oxford Academy and Wychwood School recorded no Physics entries of any kind that year, and St Clare's, Oxford teaches Physics only through the IB Diploma, entering 14 candidates at Higher Level and 17 at Standard Level rather than any GCE A-level route.

That is a different picture from Chemistry. Our own Oxford A-level Chemistry page states: “Seventeen Oxford-area sixth forms and colleges entered students for A-level Chemistry in 2024/25, 488 entries between them.” Both figures are the same measure — GCE A-level exam entries — drawn from the same 18-provider set, in the same year, so the comparison holds: one more provider enters Chemistry than Physics, and the single provider that sits outside Chemistry's count, St Clare's, also sits outside Physics's for the same reason — it is an IB school with no GCE A-level route in either subject. The Oxford Academy and Wychwood School are additional Physics non-entrants that Chemistry does not share.

Why Does Magdalen College School Teach AQA Physics but OCR Chemistry?

Board and specification are verified live, provider by provider, from each school's own site — never assumed from a sibling subject or copied between pages. Four Oxford providers publish enough to identify their Physics course with confidence.

Magdalen College School's own Physics page states: “Following the AQA Physics A Level specification, pupils explore in more detail topics encountered at IGCSE.” That is worth pausing on, because the same school's Chemistry page names a different board entirely — OCR A. A single sixth form choosing AQA for one science and OCR for another is not a contradiction; awarding-body choice is typically made department by department, not school-wide, and Magdalen College School is the clearest Oxford example of it happening between two sciences taught in adjoining classrooms.

d'Overbroeck's names no board on its own Physics page at all. What it does publish is a two-year module list: Foundations of Physics, Forces and motion and Electrons, waves and photons in the first year, then Newtonian World and Astrophysics and Particles and Medical Physics in the second. OCR's own specification page for Physics A (H156/H556) lists six modules, and modules 2 to 6 — Foundations in physics, Forces and motion, Electrons, waves and photons, Newtonian world and astrophysics, Particles and medical physics — match d'Overbroeck's published list word for word, in the same order. That match is our identification, built by comparing the two published lists side by side; it is not a statement d'Overbroeck's itself makes anywhere on its site. The same discipline applies here as on our Oxford A-level English page, which identifies d'Overbroeck's English Literature course as Edexcel 9ET0 from its set-text list alone, on the same basis: strong evidence, clearly labelled as ours.

Oxford High School GDST's own subject guide is more direct: “The Edexcel A level Physics course lasts two years, with formal exams at the end of the second year.” The school names the board but not the code; Pearson's own specification document confirms Edexcel A-level Physics is 9PH0. For the fuller board-by-board picture — paper structure, marks and grade boundaries — our AQA A-level Physics and Edexcel A-level Physics pages cover each specification in detail; this page stays with what is true only of these four Oxford providers.

Does Your Child's Oxford Sixth Form Require A-Level Maths Alongside Physics?

AQA's own specification states that 40% of the overall A-level Physics assessment carries mathematical skills at Level 2 or above, which is the practical reason several Oxford sixth forms treat Physics differently from their other science and Maths subject choices at the entry gate. Not every Oxford provider draws the line the same way.

The Swan School's own Physics page states the position outright: “7 in GCSE Physics or 7-7 in GCSE Combined Science, must also study Mathematics at A Level.” Magdalen College School is nearly as direct: “The study of Maths A Level alongside Physics is required (at least in Year 12).” Oxford High School GDST takes the opposite published position on the same question: its Physics guide says the course “is designed to be done without the need to choose any other specific A Level subjects”, before adding that the school “does recommend that Physics is taken alongside Mathematics.” A recommendation is not a requirement, and a Year 11 student choosing subjects at these two schools is answering a genuinely different question.

The GCSE entry gate itself takes several different forms across the city, not one common threshold. The Swan School names a Physics-specific grade. St Edward's School's general science clause — “candidates wishing to study Mathematics or one or more of the Sciences are required to achieve a Level 8 in those subjects” — reaches Physics without naming it. Matthew Arnold School uses neither approach: its own Sixth Form subject page states a “Required Average Point Score” of 5.8 across a student's GCSEs, a single numeric threshold rather than a named grade in any one subject. Oxford International College goes further still and publishes no GCSE grade requirement at all for A-level entry; its own admissions page sets out age (16+), an English-language level of IELTS 6.5, and an online Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT4) plus an Oxford Placement Test and interview in its place. Three routes into the same subject, three different kinds of test.

Where a school publishes only a general Sixth Form threshold rather than a Physics-specific one — Headington School Oxford's “Grade 7 or above in subjects they wish to take at A Level”, or Cheney School's “at least 5 GCSEs at Grade 4 and above including Maths and English”, or Oxford Spires Academy's “at least five grade 5's with a minimum of grade 4 in both English and Maths” — that general rule is what a Physics applicant is held to; none of the three names Physics on a subject-specific page we could find.

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Where Does DfE's 2024/25 Physics Value-Added Data Clear Zero in Oxford?

Value added compares each student's Physics grade against a national expectation built from their own prior attainment, then averages the difference across a provider's cohort. A positive or negative score on its own proves little for a small cohort; what matters is whether the 95% confidence interval around it sits entirely on one side of zero. A figure whose interval still straddles zero is not a finding, however large the headline number looks.

Querying the Department for Education's value-added API for Physics, the GCE A-level qualification and the A-level cohort, for all 18 Oxford-area providers, returns a usable figure for 12 of them. A 13th, The Swan School, returns a row but it is suppressed by DfE for having too few matched students to publish. The other five — The Oxford Academy, Wychwood School and St Clare's, Oxford (none entered GCE A-level Physics), plus Kings Education (Oxford) and Cherwell College Oxford (too few candidates to be matched or reported) — return no row at all.

Of the 12 reportable providers, four have a confidence interval lying entirely above zero, which is what the significance rule above calls a genuine finding: The Cherwell School (+0.46, interval +0.18 to +0.74, on 70 matched students), d'Overbroeck's (+0.77, +0.32 to +1.21, on 27), Magdalen College School (+0.31, +0.01 to +0.61, on 59) and Cheney School (+0.8, +0.18 to +1.41, on 14). None of the 12 has an interval lying entirely below zero. The other eight all straddle zero and are not findings under this rule, whatever their headline score reads.

The “matched entries” column above is not the same number as the subjects-entered figures in the first table on this page, and the gap between them is itself informative for one provider. Oxford International College recorded 65 GCE A-level Physics exam entries in 2024/25, but its value-added row matches only 28 of those students to an English GCSE prior-attainment record — the smaller number the value-added score above is built from. That gap is expected, not an error in either figure: DfE's value-added dataset can only compare a student against a prior grade it holds, and a college whose intake includes many international and transfer students will have a meaningful share who arrive with no English GCSE record to match against.

How Does Leading Tuition Support A-Level Physics Students Across Oxford?

Our expert A-level Physics tutors in Oxford start from a student's own sixth form, board and current working grade, not a generic revision scheme. That means opening with the right specification from the first session — AQA 7408 for a Swan School or Magdalen College School student, Edexcel 9PH0 for an Oxford High School GDST student, or the OCR Physics A modules we have identified for a d'Overbroeck's student — and building toward the entry or progression bar that provider actually sets, whether that is a named GCSE grade, St Edward's general science clause, Matthew Arnold's Average Point Score, or Oxford International College's CAT4 assessment route.

Whichever of these 15 Oxford Physics-entering sixth forms and colleges your child attends — or one of the other three that route students through IB Physics or another A-level science entirely — a programme built around their own board, paper structure and current working grade beats a generic revision plan. Explore support across Oxford, our wider A-level Physics resources, or book a free consultation to start tuition for your child.

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