Weekly Grind
6th Year
Stephen Grimes
Stephen Grimes holds an Honours Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Physics, a Postgraduate Diploma in Education & Master of Education. He has over a decade of experience teaching Physics and Mathematics at the highest level, both with the Irish syllabus and the Cambridge A-Level syllabus while teaching abroad in Kuwait and Kenya. His vast experience of different curricula has given him the unique opportunity to have key insight into preparing students for a wide variety of questions that they may be challenged on. Stephen’s passion and teaching style instills confidence in his students while providing them with a deep and clear understanding of the syllabus.Kieran Mills has 25 years’ experience teaching Physics. He has co-written several books including Leaving Certificate Physics Sample Papers. Kieran has been an expert contributor on Physics on RTÉ Radio.
"The courses were everything I needed and more. I often find it difficult to motivate myself to keep on top of work, and with many courses, I've previously attended, the general atmosphere and teaching style did nothing to help this. At The Academy I found all the teachers engaging and the students were all incredibly friendly when I'd attended in person :)) I'd often find myself genuinely looking forward to the classes"
- Attended our Physics Grinds
You do not need to have a high standard of Maths to succeed in Leaving Cert Physics. You need to be competent at manipulating formulae and using your calculator. As the course is quite long, you need to be very well prepared. You need to know definitions, demonstration of experiments, proofs and real-life Physics applications. Kieran’s notes organise the physics course so all you need to do is carry out the work as set out in the notes.
Recently exam papers have tended to have questions with mixed topics meaning omitting parts of the course is risky. For example, last year’s paper included a question on nuclear physics where students had to carry out a heat calculation. With this in mind, it is essential that you try to cover most of the course. Leaving out major topics like Electricity is not an option.
Section A is an experimental section. Kieran provides students with a workbook allowing students to carry out a write-up of all the experiments.
All leaving cert questions relevant to a topic appear at the end of each set of notes. Full solutions to all questions in the notes are provided.
Kieran puts special emphasis on Modern Physics (Electron and Nucleus) and the Particle Physics option. There can be a great return in studying these topics as they often yield 50% of the Section B questions.