IB Physics · Online, one-to-one · SL & HL
An IB Physics tutor for Singapore families — sessions that land in your evening, not the middle of your night.
Renzo Diaz is an IB Physics tutor based in Milan, teaching one-to-one online across both levels — Standard and Higher Level, current syllabus (first assessment 2025). Milan runs six to seven hours behind Singapore, which means a working morning here lands in your child's afternoon and evening. His strongest documented Physics recovery, a Grade 3 to a Grade 7 in IB Physics SL, was delivered entirely online: the same method, wherever the student is based. Application-only, with every case documented.
Singapore's education system is one of the most consistently high-performing in the world, and IB Physics is one of the courses where that standard shows up fastest: the exam rewards applying a principle under pressure, not reciting it, and a genuinely strong cohort raises the bar for what a 6 or 7 actually requires.
Physics rarely fails at the physics alone. More often it fails at the mathematics underneath it — the algebra, the unit handling, the graph reading — carried in from a different subject entirely. Diagnosing which one is breaking, before building a plan, is the first job. Singapore's IB World Schools — UWCSEA and Tanglin Trust School among them — sit the same syllabus, so the diagnostic applies the same way regardless of which one your child attends.
The unexplained Grade 5: the report says it, nobody can say why.
School reports record outcomes, not causes: a grade, a comment, rarely the reason underneath. In IB Physics the gap between a grade and its cause is wider than in most subjects, because Physics can break at the physics — a misapplied principle, a missing free-body diagram — or at the mathematics underneath it. Before any plan is built, I diagnose the exact step where the reasoning broke.
SL vs. HL: the choice, made with half the information.
International schools ask families to lock SL or HL while the student has never sat a real IB Physics paper. The choice shapes university options — physics, engineering, architecture, natural sciences — and is expensive to reverse mid-Diploma. I walk families through both levels with real exam material before the school deadline, including what each university faculty actually requires.
Mid-Diploma transfer: arrived from another curriculum, partway through.
Singapore's international-school population is highly mobile, and a student arriving from a different curriculum or a different IB school inherits the Diploma clock mid-cycle with gaps shaped by a different syllabus. The first month is structural triage: find where the previous curriculum left holes, rebuild those, and align to the new school's assessment calendar from the next mock onward.
The high-performing plateau: strong, disciplined, and still not moving past a 6.
In a cohort already used to academic pressure, a plateau at a 5 or 6 rarely means a student is behind. It usually means the remaining gap is narrow and specific — an unfamiliar-context question, a derivation habit, a unit slip under time pressure — and narrow gaps need a more precise diagnosis, not more volume of the same practice.
The syllabus change: it landed mid-course, and revision materials are still catching up.
The IB changed the Physics syllabus — new guide, first assessment 2025, new paper structure. Published revision materials are lagging the current guide almost everywhere, not just in one school system. I teach the syllabus as it is now, verified against the IB's official documentation, not the materials that haven't caught up.
Coverage
Both IB Physics levels. Find the one your child is sitting.
SL and HL share the same five themes but differ in depth, pace, and the AHL content that appears on Paper 2. Each level has its own page with the situations, syllabus coverage and exam technique specific to it.
What's actually examined
The exam your child is sitting.
The IB Physics syllabus was restructured for first assessment 2025 — five themes, 24 topics, with a genuinely new paper component. SL and HL share the same structure at different depth; both are shown below.
| Paper | Duration | Marks | Weight | What it tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 (SL) | 90 minutes, calculator allowed | 45 marks (30 multiple-choice + data analysis) | 36% | Multiple-choice plus a data-analysis component new to this syllabus. |
| Paper 1 (HL) | 120 minutes, calculator allowed | 60 marks (40 multiple-choice + data analysis) | 36% | Same structure as SL, deeper data-analysis component. |
| Paper 2 (SL) | 90 minutes, calculator allowed | 55 marks | 44% | Short-answer and extended-response questions. |
| Paper 2 (HL) | 150 minutes, calculator allowed | 90 marks | 44% | Same format as SL, across the full HL syllabus. |
| Internal Assessment (both levels) | Across the two-year Diploma | 24 marks (4 criteria × 6) | 20% | Scientific Investigation, student-designed. |
The method
A documented weekly system — the same one, wherever your child studies.
Every week opens with last week's wrong answers, because wrong answers are the cheapest source of marks. We work on what is live from school, advance the syllabus in order, and hold the same rhythm through mock weeks, IA deadlines and report cycles. Every session is recorded, summarised, and archived into a searchable library your child keeps for the entire Diploma.
Documented, public on Google
The same evidence standard, wherever the student is based.
The method does not depend on geography — it depends on rhythm. The strongest documented Physics result is a Grade 3 to a Grade 7 in IB Physics SL, delivered entirely online. That is proof the method travels, not proof it depends on being nearby.
It sits alongside 19 public Google reviews averaging 4.9 stars, each one open on the Business Profile under the reviewer's own name and date. Open the profile and check the names, the dates, and the full text yourself.
Real admission requirements
Where the IB score actually leads.
The IB score isn't the only thing universities look at — but for competitive Physics and Engineering courses, Physics HL itself is usually non-negotiable, even where the exact science-subject rules are more flexible than families are told.
| University | Requirement | Note |
|---|---|---|
| University of Oxford | Physics: 39 points including core, HL pattern around 7-6-6 | Physics and Mathematics both required at Higher Level. |
| University of Cambridge | 41-42 points, 7-7-6 at Higher Level | Engineering and Natural Sciences require Physics HL plus Math AA HL specifically — AI HL is not accepted. |
| Imperial College London | Minimum 40 points with 6 in Physics HL and 6 in Math HL; competitive offers run 7 and 7 | Math AA is preferred over AI, though both are formally accepted. |
| National University of Singapore (NUS) | Competitive Engineering and Computing offers run 40-44 points | Medicine's specific science combination varies by intake — check the current requirement directly before assuming Physics is interchangeable with Biology. |
Related pages
Ready to see if this is the right fit for your child?
Two free conversations come before anyone commits to anything. If I don't think the system will move your child meaningfully, I will tell you directly — I'd rather lose a client than take on a case I can't help.