Please find attached the following documents which will help you to prepare for studying A-level physics next academic year.

1) Why take OCR A-level physics? - a brief summary of the benefits of having this qualification and the broad range of career paths it opens up.

2) "Physics - A-level summer introductory work" - this gives a overall indication of what studying physics at a higher level entails, and what kind of sought after skills it helps develop. There is a list of suggested books to read to develop your interest and breadth of knowledge, as well as some basic data/graph manipulation activities.

3) "mathematical-skills-handbook" - referenced in the "summer introductory work" document. This is an overview produced by the exam board of the key maths skills required for success at A-level. This is worth a quick read, if only to reflect on how most of the content has already been developed in great depth by a GCSE mathematics course.

4) "practical-skills-handbook" - also produced by the exam board. Practical work plays a huge part in any A-level science course, and the skills indicated in the booklet are continuously developed through the A-level course. Again it may be worth a quick read if only to recognise that most of these ideas have already been met in principle in the study of any science at GCSE.

5) "Dark matter and energy research task" and "research and referencing" physics factsheet. Research is a major part of study at A-level and beyond. This task will broaden your understanding of some of the major unanswered questions in cosmology, as well as develop your research skills.

We would also recommend that you do the following…

1. Spend time mastering the GCSE course. This might include rereading sections of the textbook and answering exam style questions over the whole breadth of the course. To help you in this aim you will notice that all textbook answers have been made available on Moodle, and that there is a section of past papers if you scroll to the bottom of the page.
2. Powerpoints for each topic have also been uploaded to help you in this aim.
3. We also recommend you watch “Chernobyl” on Netflix if you can, for it will illustrate the breath-taking power modern understanding of physics has given us.

Please feel free to contact your physics teacher if you have any questions about A-level study which have not been answered in the above.

Kind regards,

The Physics team.