Why don't you just follow the order in the IB Physics guide?
The IB Physics topic classifications (A, B, C, D, E - full overview available on the index page) are not intended to be sequential, and the IB encourages teachers to sequence topics in whatever way works best for them and their students. In fact, following this order (A.1-A.5, B.1-B.5, etc.) would result in multiple non-ideal "dependencies", for example, trying to teach students about current and potential difference before they have studied electric charge and electric fields. This sequence has been carefully mapped to avoid such conceptual dependency problems.
Won't doing it this way be more confusing for the students?
First, I would refer to my answer above about conceptual dependencies. That said, even though the sequence has been carefully mapped to avoid these, it does sometimes group seemingly unrelated topics together in clusters, with the intent of connecting them to a common Future Physics Context (for example, diffraction gratings and discrete electron energy levels as they relate to spectroscopy). In these cases (and as is good teaching practice anyway), clearly articulating to students what they need to know, understand and do with regards to each of the IB guide understanding points, and distinguishing what is simply there to place the material in an interesting context (and thus not examinable) should help to mitigate this.
Why are some guiding questions repeated?
Most guiding questions are quite conceptually broad and are thus are connected to multiple syllabus points. The course has been sequenced at the syllabus point level, and thus sometimes a guiding question might be partially covered in one unit and then revisited in more depth during a later unit.
What's the deal with "linking questions"?
These are a new feature of the 2023 IB Physics guide (read the second paragraph of the Start Here page for more details). I have listed all linking questions that (I think) are best answered during a particular unit at the end of each unit page. It is not the intention that you wait until the end of a unit and then answer all of them in a block; in fact, I would recommend answering them as students are able to as you progress through each unit. You will notice that the linking questions lists in the final three units are much longer than those in the first three units; this is to be expected as students need to accumulate sufficient knowledge before they can make connections.
What about the "skills in the study of physics"?
In the previous IB Physics guide, many of these were taught explicitly as part of Topic 1 (Measurements and uncertainties). Expectations for certain other skills were articulated or implied through the list of required practicals and the list of mathematical requirements in the guide. In teaching the new guide, we are expected to integrate these "skills in the study of physics" (listed in a section of the new guide) throughout the teaching of the syllabus understandings. I have listed unit-specific skills to be taught explicitly as part of a given unit on each of the six unit pages. As with answering linking questions, the specific point in the unit where you teach each skill is up to you (and will be somewhat dependent on your choice of PSOW activities). Skills that are not specific to a particular unit (but are developed throughout the course) are listed here, and have not been mapped to a specific unit (and thus do not feature in any of the six unit pages).
What about combined Standard and Higher Level classes?
This scope and sequence does assume that you have considerable flexibility in when you switch between SL and HL topics. In schools where I cannot just give SL students a free period when I want to teach a HL-only lesson, I usually set them some guided revision to complete in the classroom while I teach the HL topics. Note that the "Detailed list of IB syllabus understandings and related guiding questions" documents linked from each unit page simply separate syllabus understanding points and guiding questions for that unit into SL and HL sections; you might find that you need to teach some of the HL topics in smaller "chunks" as you go through the unit (as add-ons to the related SL topics), rather than in one block at the end of the unit.
What about the Internal Assessment?
This scope and sequence does not specify or suggest where your school's Group 4 Sciences IA timeline should be placed relative to the six units. I have tried to make it "IA agnostic", but obviously it would be advantageous for students to have practiced most of the skills in the study of physics before they start their IA. If possible, I recommend waiting until students have completed Mechatronics 2, and ideally, the first half of Space Exploration 2. Note that many of the non unit-specific skills in the study of physics are strongly correlated with the Internal Assessment criteria, and as such it is advisable for students to experience being assessed against each of the criteria at some point during their first year of the course (for example via lab reports and/or a "practice IA").
How do you have time to teach the course this way?
The short answer: I don't :-) The long answer: the Future Physics Contexts are just a framework for (hopefully) making IB Physics more exciting and inspiring. How deeply you integrate them is up to you. At one end of the spectrum you are doing thematic, project-based learning for almost every topic cluster; at the other end, maybe you are just mentioning how the physics topics that you're about to teach are related to certain technologies. At the end of the day, our main goal still has to be to prepare our students for success in their IB Physics exams, so plan for whatever level of Future Physics Contexts integration you are comfortable with and have time for!
Email questions, comments and suggestions to benson.wallace@gmail.com.