IB Maths & Physics Tutor in Milan with a PhD in Physics: AA, AI and Physics at HL and SL

Several routes into the same Diploma

At the International School of Milan students reach the Diploma through the IB Middle Years Programme. ICS Milan runs the MYP too, with Cambridge IGCSE in Years 10 and 11, and St. Louis School takes students through IGCSE before the Diploma. The American School of Milan, in Noverasco di Opera, combines an American college-prep programme with the IB Diploma, Advanced Placement courses and IGCSE. The Canadian School of Milan offers the Ontario diploma alongside the IB, and Andersen International School runs a British curriculum, the IB Diploma and an Italian liceo taught in English. Each route leaves a different mark. MYP students are at ease with investigations and open tasks, which helps with the Internal Assessment, and often meet timed papers marked to a scheme for the first time in Grade 11. IGCSE students are quick on routine questions and then find that Diploma papers rarely ask the routine question. Students on an American or Canadian track carry a GPA or credit requirements on top of the IB deadlines.

Maths: AA or AI, Higher or Standard

Analysis and Approaches is the course for algebra, functions, calculus and proof, with a Paper 1 taken without a calculator; Applications and Interpretation puts more weight on statistics and modelling and allows the graphing calculator on every paper. At Higher Level both add a Paper 3 built on longer, unfamiliar problems. The mathematical exploration is 20 per cent of the final grade in every version. For students in Milan the choice often follows the destination: engineering at the Politecnico, physics or a selective economics course points to AA, frequently at Higher Level; many other degrees in Italy and abroad are happy with AI. Where the marks go missing is fairly predictable: algebra under time pressure on the non-calculator paper, probability questions that are easy to set up wrongly, and the final parts of long questions that most students never reach.

• AA HL/SL: functions, calculus, proof, the non-calculator paper
• AI HL/SL: statistical tests, modelling, the GDC on every paper
• Paper 3 at Higher Level: long unfamiliar problems
• The exploration: question, structure, criteria

Physics: the current syllabus, themes A to E

The Physics course examined since 2025 is organised in five themes: space, time and motion; the particulate nature of matter; wave behaviour; fields; nuclear and quantum physics. Paper 1 combines multiple choice with data-based questions, Paper 2 is long structured questions, and the scientific investigation is 20 per cent of the grade. My own training is in physics, a PhD and research in astroparticle physics, and lesson time follows the marks: electromagnetic induction and gravitational and electric fields, thermal energy transfers, and at Higher Level the extra material in mechanics, thermodynamics and quantum physics. A detail that matters in Milan, where many students pair Physics HL with Maths AI: Physics uses rates of change and areas under graphs that AI students meet late or not at all, and those few ideas are worth teaching early.

Choosing Higher Level before the IGCSE results arrive

In the Milan schools that teach IGCSE, Year 11 sits the Cambridge exams in May and June, and the results come out in August. The Diploma subject choice, including AA or AI and HL or SL for Maths and Physics, is usually made in the spring, months before those results. So the decision rests on the school's internal grades and on how the student copes with Year 11 Maths, and a family has to judge it without the one number everyone waits for. Two signals help more than the predicted IGCSE grade. The first is algebra without a calculator: a student who can manipulate an expression cleanly under time pressure will cope with AA, at Standard Level at least. The second is how the student handles a question they have not seen before. If the Higher Level choice is uncertain, the summer between Year 11 and the first Diploma year is the cheapest moment to test it: a few weeks on the opening Diploma topics show quickly whether HL is a stretch or a mistake, and changing in September costs far less than changing in December.

One plan for both subjects

Maths and Physics lean on the same tools: vectors, exponentials and logarithms in decay and charging, gradients and areas on graphs, uncertainties and significant figures. When one teacher follows both, a weakness found in Physics is fixed in the Maths lesson, and the two Internal Assessments, which tend to fall in the same months of the first and second Diploma year, are planned together rather than colliding. For many families it is also simpler: one weekly slot, one written update, one person to ask.

Milan, Monza, Bergamo, Como: the same slot

The international schools around Milan are spread out, from Opera in the south to Monza, Bergamo and Como to the north, and after-school traffic is not kind to a 50-minute lesson. Online removes the journey: the slot sits in the late afternoon or early evening, and it stays the same through school holidays, summer travel and the weeks before the mocks.