Stopping Distance Interactive | AQA GCSE

Need cover work? This is a no-prep, no-printing, self-led lesson that students can work through independently. It needs only a device and a browser, and no physics specialist.

Students do the physics rather than read about it. They test their own reaction time, drive a car in real time, watch it stop, and build their own graphs from what they see. Ten short panels take them from “how fast are you?” to exam-style questions, and every panel adds one new idea to the last.

What’s included
• A 10-panel interactive web page covering AQA GCSE Physics 4.5.6.3 (Forces and braking)
• Reaction-time tests: five trials and a mean, then a repeat with a distraction so students can compare their own results
• Thinking, braking and stopping distance simulations with adjustable speed (5 to 30 m/s) and a built-in calculator
• Live distance-time and velocity-time graphs drawn as the car moves, with two runs overlaid so students can compare them
• Road and vehicle conditions: wet and icy roads, worn brakes and tyres, shown on a comparison chart
• Energy and force: kinetic energy transferred to heat in the brakes, with side-by-side emergency and gentle stops
• A five-round Challenge: predict the stopping distance, then drive it and score points for accuracy
• 12 original GCSE-style exam questions (51 marks) with worked answers that can be shown or hidden.
• “Notice” prompts and “Check the explanation” boxes throughout, so students get feedback without waiting for a teacher

Why it works as cover
•Not just another “make a poster” - but making a mindmap of everything learned from this resource would work well at the end of the lesson
• Nothing to print, photocopy or set up
• The panels are self-explanatory, with a learning objective at the top of each
• Students work at their own pace
• Answers are built in, so a cover supervisor doesn’t need the mark scheme

Also great as a main lesson as a homework link or a revision session
It suits whole-class demonstration on a smartboard or for individual work on ipads etc.

Differentiation built in
Two switches that appear only on panels where content changes.
• Combined / Triple (Physics): Physics-only content covers car vs lorry, graph interpretation and estimating stopping distances.
• Foundation / Higher: Higher-only content covers the derivation of speed² = 2 × deceleration × braking distance, and F = ma force calculations.

Technical notes
• Runs in any modern browser, with no installation or login
• Designed for use on laptops, Chromebooks, iPads and smartboards
• An internet connection is needed for the correct fonts to load. Everything still works without one, but the text will look slightly different.

Suitable for: AQA GCSE Physics and Combined Science (Trilogy), ages 14 to 16, Foundation and Higher tiers. It also works for other boards covering stopping distance.

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