Year 11 Mock Examinations

Mock Examinations; these very words can strike fear into the hearts of many students - even parents for that matter! Right now, for our Year 11 students, there are undoubtedly students relishing the opportunity to demonstrate just what they know, whilst there will be some who are breaking out in a nervous sweat or procrastinating instead of knuckling down and getting on with that revision. We have all been there, of course. We have all found something terribly important to do instead of that revision we promised ourselves.

For the sociable student of the 21st Century, there are plenty of distractions – friends don´t just come knocking at the door anymore, they´ll ping up on screen too! It’s too easy to avoid quality time at the books or resources and instead engage in a couple of hours of ´chat´ or scrolling online. It’s also too easy to forget about striking the right balance between revision, work, and those other extracurricular activities which ensure that students learn to play a more active and positive role in our society.

It is important to remind ourselves and students of the importance of positive work habits but also the importance of the mind and body's need to relax, to ´chill out´ or pursue our hobbies and pleasurable pursuits. Active physical exercise can be useful for all of us, especially during revision or exams or times of stress – because a healthy body helps sustain a healthy mind. We also need to remember the importance of rest, as this is crucial in helping the brain process the information being fed into it. Finally, it’s important to spend time with family or supporting our community by providing a service or helping others. By sustaining our healthy bodies as well as healthy, busy minds and feeding our emotional needs by being an active part of society, we can be effective at our work and manage our time and emotional lives responsibly.

For many of us, the ability to manage our time between work and play is difficult. Motivation can come from our heads or our hearts. If, for instance, you find your head motivates you more, tell yourself why the revision you are doing is so important for your future. Be strong in your belief that the more effort you put in now, the easier you’ll find the work and the quicker it will be finished. If you’re happier to let your heart decide what motivates you, consider just how good it will be to have taken in the necessary information and what a boost it will be for you. Ask yourself if putting off your revision for some supposed short-term gain, like Snapchat, Whatapp, or even the Playstation, is actually worthwhile in the long term. And if you can't resist the draw of social media or a game, be realistic with yourself, set a time limit and an alarm, scroll for fifteen minutes then recognise that you've had a mental break and put the phone or game away, do some jumping jacks or dance around the room and then get back to revision.

As a young person revising, you may feel you need more choice and flexibility to scroll away and socialise, but imagine what it would be like in the world of employment…If your boss told you to do something, it would be unusual for you to do anything other than getting on with the work. If you want to be your own boss in the future, it’s even more reason to start getting the work done with self-discipline and resilience!

With just a few days to go before the mock examinations I hope that our Year 11 students use their time wisely; guarding their time, storing their time, and making their time count for the next couple of weeks whilst maintaining an important balance with the hours spent on work, family and dancing around the room.

Online Learning Guidelines

Article of Interest

Supporting Children Through Exams

Find their motivation

It is important to remember that your child’s performance in exams is not a reflection of your parenting. If they choose not to work, that is their problem, not yours. (Well, maybe it’s yours too, but not in quite the same way).

One of our key jobs as parents is to help our children to develop their own intrinsic motivation. This means the capacity to want to do things because they are worth doing, and not because someone else is standing over them telling them that they must. Standing over your child telling them to revise, and how to do it, does NOT help them to develop their own intrinsic motivation. It is, however, perfectly reasonable to help your child to think through the consequences of failure, which might help with motivation and might include:

• Having to retake or resit an examination, or

• Not being able to attend the Sixth Form of their choice, or study the subject(s) of their choice.

It is, however, important to stress that this is about helping them to become aware of what might happen, not forcing them to work by another route.

Developing Habits of Studying

First of all, it is vital to remember that studying does not start at the point of taking major exams. Like developing independence, it is an ongoing process. It starts when your children first have spellings to learn, or homework to do, and continues throughout their school life. The approach that you take to homework will help to determine how your child develops study skills.

Nobody expects a six-year-old to manage to remember to do their homework, and do it entirely alone. Equally, their homework is for them, not for you. Your support and encouragement is important, but if you do it for them, the school will not know if they are struggling. It is important to find a balance, and to maintain it throughout their school career.

It is important to develop a strategy for supporting studying that works for you and your child, but at the very least it needs:

• To help your child to develop habits of studying effectively on their own; and

• To enable you to stay abreast of your child’s work, and provide help if necessary.

Helping Your Child to Revise

Let us then assume that your child has developed good habits of independent study, and generally lets you know if and when he or she has any problems.

What can you do to support them when they come to revise for exams?

First, ask them about revision techniques, they should know a variety of revision techniques and maybe even know which techniques suit them or the subject that they are revising for.

Second, it may be helpful to ask your child what support, if any, they would like from you during exams. For example, would they like you to be available for discussions, or provide any additional resources, or even to help them draw up a realistic revision plan? It is a good idea to choose your moment for this discussion, and make sure that they do not see it as you nagging them to revise, but rather an opportunity for them to say what they need from you.

Thirdly, you need to make sure that you provide a suitable environment for study. Nobody is suggesting that you should turn your house into a library, with ‘silence’ rules for large chunks of the time. You may, however, need to make sure that noisy and disruptive younger siblings are out of the way, or at least kept busy and quiet for most of the day.

Fourthly, make sure that they are looking after themselves. It is all too easy, when you’re studying, to forget to eat. Try to make sure that your child has a good cooked meal each day, and that they are eating a healthy, balanced diet. It is also important to make sure that your child is getting enough sleep, and plenty of exercise. You may need to lead by example here, and take them out for a walk or a bike ride, or to the swimming pool, to give them a break from studying.

What Happens if it All Goes Wrong?

What if your child hasn’t achieved their predicted grade or ‘expected’ grades in one or more of their exams, despite all their (and your) efforts?

They then have to work out what to do next. There are likely to be some fairly straightforward options, depending on the timing of their failure:

In-class/Mock examinations:

• They should speak to their teacher; see what questions and topics need improving and start restudying, revising and developing those areas.

GCSE/A-level examinations:

• They may be able to move onto the next stage but resit an examination

• They may simply be able to move onto the next stage, depending on the subject(s) they have failed.

• They may simply be able to move onto the next stage, but reconsider what subjects they are going to study.

No matter what the outcome, you should encourage your child to go and talk to their teacher(s) about options as early as possible.

Original article