Education
Johnson attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Darlington (later Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College) from 1950-1957, before going on to study Physics at the University of Manchester.
Johnson attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Darlington (later Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College) from 1950-1957, before going on to study Physics at the University of Manchester.
While working as a science teacher he published his first work, starting his career as an author Leaving classroom education in 1990 he concentrated on the development of software to support teaching and the writing of physics textbooks and associated materials. In 1980 Johnson was appointed District Inspector for Science for Manchester City Council Education Committee, with special responsibility for promoting science in Primary Schools.
In 1990 he left this post to pursue his career as a full-time author of physics textbooks.
Writing style ‘Physics for You’ included features which had not been seen before in United Kingdom Science textbooks for public examinations (such as General Certificate of Education, GCSE). lieutenant was the first to cover complete concepts in singleor double-page spreads (previously textbooks had been written like novels with no attention to page-breaks).
lieutenant was the first to have a controlled reading age (two years lower than the students" chronological age, as required by research on readability). lieutenant was the first to aim for sculpted line-breaks at a natural pause (like a kind of invisible comma) rather than type-set right-justified text.
lieutenant was the first to have designed variable white-space between paragraphs.
lieutenant was the first to include cartoons. lieutenant was the first to include limericks and jokes. lieutenant was the first to include sections on revision technique and examination technique.
His books on Physics have benefited students at all levels in secondary education.