4.2 Electricity

Unit Summary

Mapped against the AQA GCSE Physics specification, this unit on Electricity develops students’ understanding of how electric charge, current, and energy underpin both natural processes and modern technology. Building on prior learning from Key Stage 3 — including topics on circuits, energy transfer, and forces — the unit explores how electrical phenomena arise, how circuits function, and how electricity is safely and efficiently used in homes and industry.

The unit begins with an introduction to static electricity, allowing students to investigate the build-up and transfer of electric charge through friction and to explain effects such as attraction, repulsion, and electrostatic discharge using models of electrons and electric fields. This conceptual foundation helps students understand electric charge as the basis for all electrical phenomena, linking directly to the flow of charge in circuits.

Students then progress to studying current, potential difference, and resistance, exploring their relationships through Ohm’s law and applying these concepts to series and parallel circuits. A required practical investigation into the factors affecting the resistance of a wire develops their understanding of experimental control, data analysis, and the limitations of electrical measurements.

Later lessons extend this knowledge to electrical power and energy transfer, with quantitative links between charge, energy, and potential difference. Students also explore mains electricity, the function of key safety features such as the fuse, earth wire, and circuit breakers, and the efficiency of large-scale energy transfer in the National Grid.

The sequence builds cumulatively — from qualitative understanding of electric charge and circuit components to quantitative reasoning involving equations, graphs, and experimental data. Both substantive knowledge (e.g. current, resistance, power, safety) and disciplinary knowledge (e.g. building and testing circuits, evaluating accuracy, interpreting results) are interwoven throughout.

This unit also includes the AQA required practicals, enabling students to:

Activity 4 -  Use circuit diagrams to construct appropriate circuits to investigate the I–V characteristics of a variety of circuit elements

Activity 3 -  Explore how wire length affects resistance.

At Developing Experts, every lesson connects theory to real-world applications and career pathways. Students see how understanding electricity supports technologies in electronics, power generation, medical engineering, and renewable energy systems, as well as careers in electrical engineering and energy management.

By combining hands-on investigation, conceptual clarity, and career-linked context, this unit helps students appreciate electricity — from the static shocks of everyday life to the power networks driving the modern world.