Choosing a tutor · 20 July 2026 · 6 min
Best online physics tutor for IGCSE: how to judge before you pay
Updated 10 September 2026
Type 'best online physics tutor for IGCSE' into any search engine and you will receive lists written by marketing departments. 'Best' is doing no work in those lists. What a parent actually needs is a way to judge — before paying — whether a tutor will move a grade.
Here is the judging system I would use for my own children, made of checks that take one conversation to run.
The evidence test
Ask which qualification, exam years and students a reported result includes. Individual result screenshots and testimonials show examples of student outcomes; they do not establish a complete cohort success rate on their own. My student-results page presents examples and explains the scope of the figures I report. Use that evidence alongside a discussion of your child’s current needs.
The materials test
Ask what the student receives beyond the sessions. The strong answer is board-specific condensed notes that replace the textbook, past papers with annotated mark schemes, and prediction or practice papers. The weak answer is 'we follow the school's book' — the school's book is what the student is already drowning in.
The Paper 6 test
A one-question shortcut for IGCSE specifically: ask how they teach the alternative-to-practical paper. Tutors who genuinely know IGCSE will immediately talk about control variables, precision language and graph technique as trainable procedures. Tutors who improvise will say 'we cover it when it comes up'. Paper 6 is where prepared students lose the most unexpected marks; a tutor without a Paper 6 method is incomplete.
Ask how they teach Paper 6. The answer tells you everything about their exam knowledge.
The between-sessions test
Online tutoring succeeds or fails between the sessions. Is homework set after every class, checked and returned? Are there regular exams under time? Can the student message the teacher directly with a stuck problem — and does the teacher, not a portal, answer? Checked work and timely feedback matter in either format. I teach in-person physics lessons in Khalidiya, near Abu Dhabi Corniche, as well as live online groups; ask the same questions about support for both.
Run the checks
Evidence, materials, Paper 6, between-sessions. Four checks, one conversation. Any online tutor who passes all four is a defensible choice; the best one is the one whose evidence is strongest. That is the honest answer to 'who is the best' — and it is a question you can now answer yourself.