Physics Tutors in Switzerland — IB, Matura and IGCSE

CHF 95 per 60 minutes with Good Tutors Finder from age 11 upwards, all-in — and that includes Higher Level, the Schwerpunktfach, A Level and university-entrance work. A learner aged 10 or under is CHF 85. Prepaid packages lower it: five hours are CHF 440, which is CHF 88 an hour; ten are CHF 810, which is CHF 81; twenty are CHF 1,560, which is CHF 78. If you choose Distinction, our most accomplished tutors, at CHF 130 an hour, five of those hours are CHF 600 and ten are CHF 1,110, which is CHF 111 an hour. There is no enrolment fee, no travel surcharge and no difference in price between a lesson at your table and a lesson online. Elsewhere in this market published physics rates run from about CHF 24 an hour on a marketplace to CHF 160 face to face at a Geneva agency that also charges a CHF 100 enrolment fee — and most providers do not state the length of the lesson, so the comparison is not one you can actually make.

For an international candidate, the IB Diploma with at least 38 points out of 42 excluding bonus points, Higher Level study and examination in mathematics and physics plus one of chemistry, biology or computer science, and final grades of at least 6 out of 7 in both mathematics and physics. EPFL publishes a lower bar for candidates holding a Swiss IB or schooled in Switzerland: 36 of 42 with 5 out of 7 in each of those two subjects. French at B2, with C1 recommended, is a separate condition on top. The practical consequence is stark: a student on Standard Level physics is outside the requirement whatever their total, and that choice was made on an option form two years earlier.

Not specifically. ETH Zurich asks for 38 out of 42 points without bonus points, with Higher Level mathematics — either Analysis and Approaches or Applications and Interpretation — plus physics, chemistry or biology at Higher Level, plus one Language A, and three further subjects at Standard Level. So physics is one acceptable science of three at ETH and compulsory at EPFL. That difference between the two institutions is the single most common misunderstanding we correct. A candidate who does not meet the threshold can sit ETH's reduced entrance examination instead.

Five themes, since the rewrite first assessed in 2025: space, time and motion; the particulate nature of matter; wave behaviour; fields; and nuclear and quantum physics. There are no option topics and no options paper. Higher Level is the Standard Level syllabus plus additional content — 240 teaching hours against 150 — and adds rigid body mechanics and Galilean and special relativity, which have no Standard Level foothold at all. Assessment is Paper 1 at two hours and 36 per cent, with a multiple-choice section and a data-based section; Paper 2 at two and a half hours and 44 per cent; and the scientific investigation at 20 per cent. The weightings are identical at both levels.

In the May 2025 session, IB Physics at Higher Level had 17,970 candidates and a mean grade of 4.9, with about 18.9 per cent awarded a 7. That is the most generous of the three main sciences at the top band — chemistry was around 15 per cent and biology around 7 — and it is still fewer than one candidate in five. A 7 is a two-year project rather than a spring revision project, and if you are being told otherwise in February of DP2 you are being told something the data does not support.

In our experience it is one of three things, and they need completely different work. It is the mathematics: rearranging, index laws, unit conversion and sign discipline, which look like physics errors and are not. It is Paper 1 Section 1B: reading an unfamiliar data set, extracting a gradient, handling uncertainty — a skill that is examined for a third of a paper and often never explicitly taught. Or it is the command terms: a physically correct answer to "describe" when the question said "explain" scores badly and reads to the student as unfair marking. The first lesson is a diagnosis, and it frequently ends somewhere the family did not expect.

Yes, within a line we publish rather than blur. We will teach the physics and the uncertainty analysis it rests on, explain the assessment criteria band by band, interrogate a research question your child has proposed — is it answerable, is there a measurable variable, can the data be collected with the apparatus available — discuss method and control of variables, read a draft your child has written and give feedback on it, and rehearse the reasoning out loud, which is where evaluation marks are actually won. We will not write or edit any part of it, hand your child a research question, produce the data or the graphs, or run repeated rounds of edits. The IB defines misconduct as deliberate or inadvertent, so a tutor tidying an evaluation paragraph has still done it — and it is your child who carries it.

On the Core route: Paper 1, multiple choice, 45 minutes and 30 per cent; Paper 3, theory, an hour and a quarter and 50 per cent; and then either Paper 5, the Practical Test, at an hour and a quarter, or Paper 6, the Alternative to Practical, at an hour — each worth 20 per cent. The Extended route substitutes Papers 2 and 4 for Papers 1 and 3. The tier decision is made by the school, and it is worth questioning: a student entered at Core who then wants Higher Level physics in the Diploma starts DP1 with a real content gap, and it is much cheaper to argue about the tier in Year 10 than to close the gap in DP1.

No. Cambridge states plainly that every entry option for AS and A Level sciences includes a practical component and that there is no alternative to practical skills assessment. At IGCSE and O Level there is an Alternative to Practical paper available to private candidates, subject to what the centre offers, but at A Level there is not. If you are planning a private-candidate entry, solve the practical first — the plan is not a plan until you have.

It is the physics-and-mathematics specialism in the Swiss gymnasiale Matura, usually shortened to PAM. It extends and supplements the Grundlagenfächer in mathematics and physics, reaching material such as Einstein's relativity, matrices and complex numbers, with heavy computer use. In Canton Lucerne in 2023/24 roughly a tenth of gymnasium students took it, and it was chosen considerably more often by male students. It is Specialist at CHF 95 an hour, exactly as the Grundlagenfach is. Under the revised federal ordinance the Schwerpunktfach catalogue is set cantonally, so check what your child's own school offers rather than assuming a national list.

No — both are Specialist at CHF 95 an hour. Higher Level is 240 teaching hours against 150, adds two topics with no Standard Level foundation, and has a top band reached by fewer than one candidate in five, and it is still CHF 95. So are the Schwerpunktfach Physik und Anwendungen der Mathematik, A Level physics including the practical, EPFL and ETH admissions work, the MYP, IGCSE 0625 and the Matura Grundlagenfach. The only figure above CHF 95 is Distinction at CHF 130, and that is our most accomplished tutors rather than a harder level: you can ask for it on any physics at any level, and we will never tell you the work requires Distinction; that is your call, not ours.

Typically 48 to 72 hours from your enquiry to a named tutor. Faster is sometimes possible and we will never guarantee it. There is no free trial, and the reason is not meanness: a free lesson signals that the hour is a sample rather than teaching, and it fills a diary with people who were never going to book. Instead the first hour is charged at the standard single-hour rate — CHF 95, or CHF 130 if you have chosen Distinction — and if you then buy a package that amount comes straight off it, so the hour you already had is re-priced at the package rate along with the rest. Ten Specialist hours cost CHF 810 whether you buy the package outright or take one hour first. And that first lesson carries both guarantees: your money back, or a different tutor with the hour credited. You choose which.

Tell us three things: the school, the year, and the level and the number you are working towards — Higher Level physics at a 6 for EPFL, IGCSE 0625 Extended, the Grundlagenfach before a spring examination. That is enough for us to come back with a named tutor who has taught it, typically within 48 to 72 hours, and enough for us to tell you honestly whether the number is reachable. Sometimes it is not, and we would rather say so and talk about what is — a level change, the ETH entrance route, or a different destination. Nothing is charged to enquire and nothing is charged to be assigned. Book a tutor, or send a WhatsApp message on +41 76 213 1843 and ask what we would do in your position.