Meet your Grade 10 physics tutors
The three tutors below sit on the same boundary a 10th grader is standing on, where physics stops being descriptive and starts being algebra. Between them they cover mechanics, thermodynamics, AP Physics, and the Algebra II that runs alongside the course. Every claim here is checkable: open the profile, then decide. The full physics tutor roster runs to 11 people if none of these three fit the timetable.
Explore all our Physics Tutors
Why 10th grade physics turns into a maths problem
Most students meet real physics in 10th grade at the same time they meet Algebra II, and the two courses collide. Ninth grade science asked what happens. Tenth grade physics asks by how much, and then asks the student to prove it with a vector, a rearranged equation, and a diagram drawn before any number is written down.
That is where the grade usually slips. A student who can explain friction in a sentence still loses the marks, because the question wanted the component of weight along a 23 degree incline. The physics was never the problem. The setup was.
The fix is unglamorous and it works: fewer problems, done slowly, with the diagram drawn first every single time.
What a 10th grade physics tutor actually works on
Sessions follow the student's own syllabus and their own assessment calendar, not a fixed curriculum. Across US and Canadian 10th grade physics courses that usually means:
Kinematics. Motion graphs, the difference between distance and displacement, and the point where students stop plugging into equations at random and start choosing one for a reason.
Forces and Newton's laws. Free-body diagrams, normal force on an incline, tension in a two-body system, and the Newton's second law standard that most state science frameworks build the unit around.
Work, energy, and power. Conservation of energy as a bookkeeping habit rather than a formula to recall.
Momentum and collisions. Elastic against inelastic, and the sign conventions that quietly cost marks.
Waves, sound, and basic electricity, where the course includes them.
The Algebra II underneath all of it. Rearranging for a variable that is not isolated, trigonometry for components, and unit tracking.
Not included: lab report writing, science fair project supervision, and take-home test completion. NAT tutors will teach the physics behind a lab and will not write the submission.
Students who also need the maths side handled book 10th grade math tutoring with the same schedule, and many book one tutor across both.
Michael Carlton holds dual degrees in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Texas at Austin and is preparing for graduate study in particle physics. He has taught the subject at both high school and university level and limits his student load because of the intensity of his own coursework. That is unusual, and it shapes what a session with him looks like: he is the person on the roster least likely to hand over a worked answer.
You tell us the course and the problem.
Not "physics is hard", but "she is in honors physics, the forces unit test came back at 61, and the energy unit starts in two weeks." Course name, textbook, and the next assessment date are the three things that make a good match possible.
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A person picks the tutor, not an algorithm.
We match on the course, the timetable, and whether the student needs the maths rebuilt alongside the physics. You get a name and a profile link before anything is booked.
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The $50 diagnostic hour.
Sixty minutes, one-on-one, spent finding where the chain actually breaks. It ends with a written plan and a short feedback summary. If you upgrade to a package within 48 hours, that $50 comes off the plan.
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Weekly sessions against the assessment calendar.
Most families run one session a week, with a second added in the fortnight before a unit test.
What sessions actually look like
Every session is online, one-on-one, and 60 minutes, with a shared whiteboard for diagrams because physics cannot be taught through a chat window. The student joins from home. No travel, no minimum travel radius, and time zones are handled at the match stage rather than being your problem, which is how the same three tutors can work with students across 30+ countries.
What you need to supply is short: the course syllabus or textbook name, the last two graded assessments, and the dates of the next two. The graded work matters more than the syllabus. A tutor can read a marked test in four minutes and see whether the student is losing points on setup, on algebra, or on reading the question.
Between sessions, students get targeted practice rather than a problem set. Ten questions chosen against one weakness beats forty chosen against a chapter.
What 10th grade physics tutoring costs
The first 60 minute diagnostic session is $50. After that, NAT's published high school rates are package based: 15 lessons at $915, which works out at $61 per lesson, or 20 lessons at $1,180, which is $59 per lesson. Upgrade within 48 hours of the diagnostic and the $50 is credited toward the package.
What moves the number is the package length, not the subject and not the tutor's university. A physics session and a maths session cost the same, and a student who books both usually runs one package across the two.
For comparison against what you will see elsewhere: marketplace tutors advertise from roughly $20 an hour with no screening standard behind the listing, and the vetted online services in this category publish rates between $39 and $100 an hour. NAT sits inside that band, not below it.
How to choose a Grade 10 physics tutor
Six things worth checking before you pay anyone, including us.
Can you see who will teach, before you book? A photo and a first name is not a credential. A profile page naming a university and a degree is.
Does the tutor's own background sit on the maths side of physics? Tenth grade physics fails on algebra more often than on concepts. A tutor with a physics, engineering, or mathematics degree has lived that specific problem.
Do they teach your child's actual course? Conceptual physics, algebra-based physics, honors, and AP Physics 1 are four different courses with four different assessment styles. Ask which one they have taught this year.
How fast can they start, and does that matter? A marketplace will start tonight. A vetted match takes a few days. If the unit test is on Thursday, honest answer, the marketplace tutor may be the better call for this week.
What happens when the match is wrong? Ask before you book, not after. Ask specifically about refunds, credits, and swapping tutors, because those are three different things.
Do they hold a teaching qualification? NAT tutors are subject specialists from strong universities, not licensed classroom teachers. For a student with an IEP or a diagnosed learning difference, a service staffed by certified teachers is often the better fit, and we will say so on the call.
Ansh Malviya studies Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he is manufacturing lead and primary driver for Formula Electric, the university's electric race car team. He interned at Stanford researching solar flare energy emissions while still in high school, and he tutors physics, calculus, and astronomy. He is on this page because he uses 10th grade mechanics as a working tool rather than as a topic he once revised.
Grade 10 physics help, five options compared
Many parents of 10th graders are thinking about AP Calculus, even if the class is two years away. That's the right instinct. The path to AP Calculus AB or BC runs directly through 10th grade content.
Here's the typical sequence most high schools follow:
Two rows on that table are not us, and one of them is free. If your child has one confused topic and a teacher who holds office hours, start there.
Who this is right for, and who it is not
A good fit when:
The grade is slipping across a whole unit, not on one bad test
Physics and Algebra II are being carried in the same year and one is dragging the other
The student is heading for honors or AP Physics 1 in grade 11 and needs the foundation to hold
The family wants to know the tutor's name and university before paying
Not a good fit when:
The test is in three days and nothing has been started. A few sessions will not rebuild a unit that fast.
The student needs formal accommodation or an IEP-aligned approach. A certified teacher service is the better call.
Nobody has asked the student whether they want help. Tutoring a student who has not agreed to it wastes your money and their evening.
The requirement is homework completion rather than understanding. That is not what these tutors do.
What we can show you, and what we cannot
Here is the evidence, and its limits. Every tutor named on this page has a profile you can open right now, and the credentials on it are checkable: a dual mathematics and physics degree from UT Austin, a mechanical engineering course at UC Berkeley, 18 AP courses and a statistics major at the University of Chicago. Across the whole service, North American Tutors publishes 59,950+ lessons delivered to 4,950+ students in 30+ countries, and a figure of 92 percent of students gaining two or more letter grades or 90 or more SAT points.
What sits behind that 92 percent is not published: no cohort size, no measurement window, no method. It is a first-party claim and it should be read as one.
What does not exist yet is a physics case study. The published student case studies are real, detailed, and worth reading, and every one of them is SAT, ACT, or MCAT. There is no third-party review platform rating either, which is why no stars appear anywhere on this page. When a grade 10 physics result is documented properly, it will be published here.
FAQ’s
Frequently Asked Questions
Related pages
9th grade physics tutoring, for a younger sibling or a student repeating the foundation
High school tutoring, grades 9 through 12
AP Physics tutoring for students taking AP Physics 1 early
AP Physics resource hub, including the free formula sheets
AP Physics 1 kinematics cheat sheet, useful even outside AP for the motion-graph unit