CCEA GCSE Physics: units, practicals, C* grades and 2027 dates

CCEA GCSE Physics: how the course is built

Northern Ireland's GCSE Physics was first taught in September 2017. It has three units and nine prescribed practicals, and its content is also taught inside Double Award Science. Students take at least 40% of the assessment at the end of the course, and a unit can be resat once with the better result counting, except when that unit is needed for the terminal rule.

Units 1 and 2 are compulsory structured questions with short responses, extended writing and calculations, at Foundation or Higher tier. Booklets A and B in Unit 3 are taken at the same tier. The dates come from CCEA's final GCSE timetable, summarised in our CCEA GCSE timetable 2027. Morning papers start at 9.15am.

What the Physics units cover

• Unit 1: Motion, Force, Density and Kinetic Theory, Energy, and Atomic and Nuclear Physics.
• Unit 2: Waves, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Electromagnetism and Space Physics.
• Unit 3: Unit 3 is practical skills. Booklet A is two practicals done in school and marked by CCEA, and Booklet B is a one hour paper (1 hour 15 minutes on Higher) on practical method and data.

Content in bold is for Higher tier. The specification tells you to recall and use equations such as rate of change of speed and the average speed equations, so build your own equation list for your tier.

Worked examples in CCEA Physics style

Acceleration and force

The speed of a 900 kg car rises from 4 to 22 metres per second over 6 seconds. The rate of change of speed is the change in speed divided by the time taken:

Then use force = mass × acceleration:

The resultant force is 2700 N. Write the unit on every line and state that it is the resultant (unbalanced) force on the car.

CCEA GCSE Physics grades

Unit uniform marks are added and mapped to nine grades, A*, A, B, C*, C, D, E, F and G, with U below. Foundation reaches C* to G and Higher reaches A* to D, with an allowable E. For how C* compares with 9 to 1, see GCSE grades in Northern Ireland.

Use the daily paper as a short timed mock for CCEA GCSE Physics

On Uni-Sine the Physics tracks are Foundation and Higher. A daily paper is a short mock of 8 questions and 25 to 35 marks and is not set by CCEA.

• What it covers well: forces and motion, energy, density and the particle model, radioactivity, waves and the electromagnetic spectrum, circuits and electromagnetism, and space physics, which line up with both units.
• What it does not cover: the Booklet A practical tasks and the Booklet B written practical paper, which are 25% of the grade.

Time a daily paper and mark every unit and significant figure. Then use a CCEA Unit 1 or 2 past paper to check you can recall the equations without a prompt.

Exam answers

Nothing on this page, or on Uni-Sine, is an official answer or a past paper solution. Today's paper comes with its own answers and worked mark scheme once it is marked.

Common mistakes in CCEA GCSE Physics

• Forgetting the practical unit. It is 25% of the grade across Booklets A and B.
• Mixing speed and velocity when a direction is given.
• Leaving out units or writing the wrong ones, such as m/s instead of m/s².
• Rounding between steps in a two-stage calculation. Keep the full value.

Read next

UK · GCSECCEA GCSE Physics grade boundaries 2026: raw marks by unitCCEA GCSE Physics grade boundaries for Summer 2026: raw and uniform marks for Units 1 to 3 at Foundation and Higher, plus the 400 mark subject lines.