Exams Information
Exams are an important part of every child’s educational career. . As a school, we recognise the importance that an effective partnership between teachers and parents/carers has on a student's final outcomes, which is why we want to ensure that you have all the information you need to be able to support your child through their final year of secondary school.
Tips for parents
- Encourage your child to make a revision timetable – and stick to it.
- Make sure your child has a quiet space to work, with no distractions.
- Help to find the method of learning and retaining information that works best for them. It could be reading and making notes, using flash cards or Post-it notes, looking at video clips, playing back recordings of their own voice, mind mapping or perhaps a mixture of these.
- Check the exam specifications. These are available to view on our curriculum pages online.
- Search out revision apps and online resources – such as BBC Bitesize and Gojimo – to clarify areas your child feels less confident about. Teenagers sometimes concentrate on their best subjects and leave their weaker ones till the end, but it is a good idea to tackle weak areas early on.
- Be around as much as possible. You don’t have to be at their side 24/7 but children like parents taking an interest in their revision (but not taking over).
- Keep the kitchen cupboard stocked with delicious food. When the going gets tough, children really appreciate a cup of tea, a plate of biscuits or their favourite meal.
- Encourage them to break revision into manageable chunks and to take regular breaks in between revision sessions. It’s far more effective to do 30 minutes of successful revision – rather than plough on for hours on end and not get anywhere. This is supported with research by academics at the University of Sheffield who found that learning is more effective when spread out over periods of time.
- Exercise, fresh air, healthy food and lots of sleep are crucial.
- Most important of all, help your child to keep everything in perspective. Remind them that the better they prepare and the more confident they feel in their subject knowledge the less stressed they will feel when the exams start. But by the end of June the exams will be over, and it will be the start of the long summer holidays.
Below are some useful links that may help you to support your child more effectively at home:
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/exam-stress/#Copingwithexampressure
https://www.studentminds.org.uk/examstress.html
https://www.mind.org.uk/for-young-people/feelings-and-experiences/exam-stress/