GCSEPod vs Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT): A full comparison for GCSE students

GCSEPod and Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT) are two of the most recognised names in UK GCSE revision, but they work in very different ways. GCSEPod is a school-only subscription built around short curriculum-mapped video Pods. Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT) is a free, ad-supported website hosting past papers, topic questions and revision notes. This guide walks through what each one does, where it works best, and how to decide between them.

GCSEPod (branded Access GCSEPod, owned by The Access Group) is a UK online learning platform built around a library of 13,000+ short curriculum-mapped video Pods created with teachers and examiners. It covers 30+ subjects across KS3, GCSE, GCSE resits, IGCSE, SQA, Functional Skills, with self-marked quizzes, teacher assignments and a mobile app on iOS and Android. It's sold on a school-only site licence, so students only get access if their school subscribes. There's no direct-to-consumer or parent-pay option, and it doesn't cover A-Level, IB or AP.

Physics & Maths Tutor (also known as PMT Education) is a free, ad-supported UK revision website that's been running since 2013. It hosts past papers, topic-organised exam questions, mark schemes, revision notes, worksheets and solution banks across nine subjects: Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Geography, English, Psychology and Computer Science. Coverage spans GCSE, IGCSE and A-Level across the main UK boards. The core library is free at the point of use, funded by on-page ads. PMT also runs paid revision courses, admissions-test prep (PAT, medical) and 1-2-1 online tuition from £20 an hour.

A feature-by-feature summary of how the two platforms line up for GCSE revision.

Honestly, the best move is to find what works for you, and it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

What's great is that PMT is free at every point, ad-supported. GCSEPod is school-only, so you'll need your school to subscribe.

Broadly, GCSEPod suits students at a subscribing school who want short, teacher-verified concept videos and school-level progress tracking. PMT suits students building their own revision routine around past papers, topic questions and revision notes. If you want teaching plus active recall plus AI-marked exam questions in one place, Cognito is worth adding to the shortlist.

Cognito is designed to be an all-in-one platform that supports you from learning the content, to remembering it, to knowing how to apply it in your exams. So when you sign up, you can add all of your subjects to your dashboard, ready to go, as you can see below.

Each subject is broken down into sections and subtopics, all mapped precisely to your specification. That means you only ever learn what you actually need to know for your paper, and you can see at a glance what's left to cover.

Each topic has a short video lesson and/or beautifully designed revision notes, and some have a little cheat sheet that summarises everything on one page. It's good for last-minute revision, or printing out and sticking on the wall.

Once you've learned a topic, you can build your own quiz mixing any set of topics you've covered. Cognito uses spaced repetition and interleaving to decide what to bring back and when, adapting to how you're doing. These are the two study techniques with the strongest evidence base in cognitive science.

And when you're ready for exam-style practice, you can work through real exam questions with typed answers. Then either self-mark against the mark scheme point by point, or use AI marking to check your answer against the examiner's points.