Electrical Circuit
Electricity and Magnetism

Thinking about actions to take: Power and Voltage

Teaching Guidance for 11-14 Supporting Physics Teaching

There's a good chance you could improve your teaching if you were to:

Try these

  • relating the brightness of lamps to what's happening to the current and voltage in each loop
  • using semi-quantitative reasoning and physical models, such as the rope loop

Teacher Tip: Work through the Physics Narrative to find these lines of thinking worked out and then look in the Teaching Approaches for some examples of activities.

Avoid these

  • diving straight into the sums to be done
  • using ad-hoc rules to generate the sums to be done

Teacher Tip: These difficulties are distilled from: the research findings; the practice of well-connected teachers with expertise; issues intrinsic to representing the physics well.

IOP AWARDS 2025

Teachers of Physics Awards

The Teachers of Physics Award celebrates the success of secondary school physics teachers who have raised the profile of physics and science in schools. Nominations for 2025 are now open.

Start your nomination now