Physics Tutors in Basel — IB, ETH and Matura

CHF 95 per 60 minutes for IB Standard Level and Higher Level, IGCSE, MYP, Cambridge International A Level, Schwerpunktfach work and Matura Grundlagenfach physics, all-in, with Good Tutors Finder. Prepaid packages lower it: ten hours are CHF 810, which is CHF 81 an hour. Distinction at CHF 130, or CHF 1,110 for ten hours, is our most accomplished tutors and you can choose it on any physics. There is no enrolment fee and no in-person premium. Across the market, Swiss marketplaces list Basel physics from CHF 20 to CHF 59 an hour, averaging CHF 34; a Basel institute charges from CHF 65 per 45-minute Lektion, which is about CHF 87 an hour; and agencies publishing a face-to-face Swiss rate quote CHF 100 to CHF 160, some with a one-off enrolment fee.

No. Münsterplatz runs the IB Diploma from the middle of grade 11 to the middle of grade 13 in six subjects: German, English, French, geography, biology and mathematics. Biology is the only Group 4 science, so there is no IB Physics and no IB Chemistry. The reason is structural — Münsterplatz is a humanistic Gymnasium whose Schwerpunktfächer are PPP, English, Spanish, Latin and Greek, with no science specialism at all. A pupil there still studies physics, but as a Swiss Matura Grundlagenfach in German, on a syllabus unrelated to the IB guide. Two of the school's own pages, one German and one English, list the same six subjects. Plan for it in grade 10 rather than discovering it in grade 12.

Thirty-eight of forty-two points, with the bonus points excluded, plus a specific subject combination. At Higher Level: mathematics, either Analysis and Approaches or Applications and Interpretation; one of physics, chemistry or biology; and one Language A. At Standard Level: three further subjects drawn from physics, chemistry, biology, geography, history, economics or business management, one further language only, and computer science. Miss any single one of those conditions and there is no partial credit — the route becomes the Reduced Entrance Examination. The bonus-point exclusion catches families out most often, because a 40 that includes three core points from Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay counts as 37 here, and 37 is a fail.

No, and the difference is physics. ETH will admit an IB student whose Higher Level science is biology or chemistry, with no physics at all. EPFL requires Higher Level mathematics, Higher Level physics, and one of chemistry, biology or computer science, plus a first and second modern language and one of history, geography, economics or philosophy. It also sets grade floors: at least 6 out of 7 in both mathematics and physics on 38 of 42 points excluding bonuses, or 36 points and 5 out of 7 for Swiss-resident IB holders. Since 2025 EPFL has capped first-year Bachelor intake at 3,000 for at least four years, so IB applicants are ranked by academic average and admitted in early August within the available places.

The reduced examination covers four subjects: mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics. The comprehensive version adds German, a foreign language, history and geography. Physics is examined twice — three hours written and fifteen minutes oral — across mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, and optics and waves. The next sitting runs from 18 to 28 January 2027, written papers on the Monday to Wednesday of the first week and orals through to the Thursday of the second. Registration opens on 15 September and closes on 15 October, which is also the deregistration deadline. The fee is CHF 550 reduced, CHF 800 comprehensive. Only three simple calculators are permitted and graphic calculators are banned. The examination is conducted in German.

Harder in content, but not in outcome — and the published data is the opposite of the folklore. In May 2025, 17,984 candidates sat Physics Higher Level for a subject mean of 4.9, ahead of Chemistry Higher Level at 4.8 and Biology Higher Level at 4.5, with 19.2 per cent of them awarded a 7, the highest seven-rate of the three sciences. Physics Standard Level is where students get stuck: 14,442 candidates, a mean of 4.2, a modal grade of 4 taken by 25.9 per cent of the cohort, and only 10.3 per cent awarded a 7. The IB does not publish why, and we will not guess — but the distribution is the distribution. Dropping to Standard Level to protect a points total is a move the IB's own numbers do not support.

Standard Level is 150 hours — 110 of syllabus content plus 40 of experimental programme — and Higher Level is 240, made up of 180 plus 60. Several guides still print 130 for Standard Level; that number is wrong. The content splits across five themes: space, time and motion at 27 hours Standard and 42 Higher; the particulate nature of matter, 24 and 32; wave behaviour, 17 and 29; fields, 19 and 38; and nuclear and quantum physics, 23 and 39. Fields is the single biggest jump between the levels and is usually where a Standard-Level-trained tutor stops being useful. The experimental programme is practical work of 20 or 40 hours, ten hours of collaborative sciences project and ten of scientific investigation.

Out of 24 marks — four criteria of six. Since first assessment in May 2025 the internal assessment is a single task — an open-ended investigation in which the student gathers and analyses data to answer their own research question. It is allocated ten teaching hours, worth 20 per cent of the subject grade at both levels, and marked across four equally weighted criteria of six marks each: research design, data analysis, conclusion and evaluation. Marking uses a best-fit model, so a high level on one criterion does not carry the others, and the work is externally moderated. The report has a maximum of 3,000 words. Collaborative data gathering is optional and groups must be no larger than three; the question, analysis and conclusions must be the student's own.

In Basel-Stadt, only Gymnasium Kirschgarten and Gymnasium Bäumlihof. Leonhard, Am Münsterplatz and the Wirtschaftsgymnasium do not offer it. Kirschgarten runs just three Schwerpunktfächer in total, two of them scientific, and is also the only one of the two offering Ergänzungsfach Physik — Bäumlihof's Ergänzungsfach list does not include it. Kirschgarten holds the SCNAT MINT-Label, awarded in 2021 and re-accredited in 2026. In Basel-Landschaft the same profile is called Anwendungen der Mathematik und Physik and, unlike Greek, music and Russian, it carries no school restriction on the cantonal list, so it is available across the Basel-Landschaft Gymnasien; Liestal publishes it as its Profile A.

Both are worth 20 per cent of Cambridge IGCSE Physics and both are externally assessed against the same experimental skills from Section 4 of the syllabus. Paper 5 is the Practical Test: 1 hour 15 minutes, 40 marks, with real apparatus in a laboratory. Paper 6 is the Alternative to Practical: one hour, 40 marks, entirely written. Every candidate takes one of the two, in addition to a multiple-choice paper worth 30 per cent and a theory paper worth 50 per cent. The school decides which, usually without consulting families, so a fifth of the grade turns on an entry choice your child never saw. The skill is teachable on paper or at a bench, but the two are practised differently.

Twenty-three per cent of the full A Level, split across two papers. Paper 3, Advanced Practical Skills, is a two-hour laboratory paper worth 40 marks and 11.5 per cent. Paper 5, Planning, Analysis and Evaluation, is 1 hour 15 minutes with two compulsory questions worth 30 marks and another 11.5 per cent — and Cambridge states plainly that the contexts of those questions may lie outside the syllabus content, because it is testing experimental design rather than recall. That is the paper that most reliably damages grades. Paper 4 is the heaviest single component at 38.5 per cent, two hours and 100 marks. Candidates can sit AS only, stage AS and A2 across two years with carry-forward, or take all five papers in one series.

Yes, at your home in Basel, Reinach, Aesch, Riehen, Binningen, Muttenz or Liestal, at the same price as online and with no travel charge. The closure is real and we plan around it: the line is fully suspended between Aesch Dorf and Dreispitz from 18 May to 12 December 2026 while the Surbaum to Freilager section is renewed, with replacement buses and the Surbaum, Reinacherhof, Heiligholz and Gartenstadt stops served from the Hauptstrasse. That covers the whole of ISB's autumn term. Under the replacement timetable, Barfüsserplatz to Reinach Landhof runs 31 to 33 minutes with a change, and Basel SBB to Reinach Landhof only 21 to 22 — faster from the station than from the city centre. A tutor travelling to you saves an ISB family roughly an hour a session. Give us your postcode when you enquire and we will say plainly what is workable before you pay anything — book a tutor, or send a WhatsApp message and ask first.