Priya Raman

Priya teaches A-level Physics and Key Stage 3 Science, so her week runs from Year 9 pupils meeting forces for the first time to Year 13 students working through circular motion and electric fields. The sketch pad is always open. Before an equation appears, she draws the situation: a cyclist on a banked track, a charge moving between two plates.

Physics tends to fall apart when the picture is missing. A student who cannot see what is accelerating will reach for a formula that looks familiar and lose the marks anyway, so Priya spends the first few minutes of a topic getting the drawing right, then attaches the symbols to it. Diagrams are photographed and added to the lesson notes, and the recording lets a student watch the sketch being built again later rather than squinting at a finished version.

Her Key Stage 3 lessons are quieter and more exploratory. A pupil deciding whether to take physics further often needs to see that the subject is about how things work, not a list of equations to memorise, and Priya gives them room to predict what will happen before she explains it. She also covers the required practicals on the A-level courses, including the data analysis and uncertainty questions that appear in the written papers and catch out students who have only memorised the method.

Parents can see the diagrams and lesson notes in the progress report, with a plain account of what is secure and what still needs work.