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Saturday April 27th, 2024
Welcome to your April issue – we hope you had a lovely Easter break. This month, as exam season looms, we’ll be considering revision techniques and best practice. But we’ll be balancing that with a healthy dose of perspective: exams aren’t always the be-all and end-all after all (though you’ll need to judge whether to share that sentiment with your teenager!)
Revision ideas
There are loads of resources available to help with revision, but the very fact there is so much out there can sometimes feel overwhelming. And that’s before you even start the revision itself! In our previous April issues (April 2018 and April 2022 specifically) we’ve talked a bit about different approaches to revision. This year, we’ve broken it down into three main categories. You might already know your preference, or you might find elements of each work well for you.
Considering tutoring?
Before we launch into our list of revision ideas, don’t forget that we offer subject-specific tuition for all ages and exam levels. Sometimes you just need a bit of help to a) work out what it is you need to be revising and b) get on with revising it effectively. Tutoring can be the perfect antidote to revision prevarication. Contact us to find out more.
Because of course, it’s tempting to revise the things we enjoy most. And a bit of that is good for us – it cheers us up and boosts our self-confidence. But those feel-good fields of study are often the subjects or subtopics we feel most comfortable with and therefore need to revise least. At each stage of your revision, you’re always looking for the areas that still need work. That’s why revision can be such a hard slog. It’s a hard balance to strike: celebrating the positives without getting complacent; identifying your weaknesses without losing confidence. These are skillsets some adults have yet to discover never mind perfect. No wonder our teenagers find exam build-up so stressful. Let us support you to identify the areas you need to focus on to improve your grades, and then empower you to do just that. Get in touch to find out more about our tutoring service.
Revision step 1: distilling your learning
This stage of revision is all about extracting the essentials from the resources you have to hand. This could include your own written work (all those class exercise books or online homework assignments), your textbooks and study guides, and digital resources (such as BBC Bitesize or YouTube videos). In my experience, this can be a useful starting point for revision, but it can also be the point at which you might feel most overwhelmed. Don’t panic! One way you can ease yourself into this, even as the school year progresses, is by bookmarking topics and subtopics that you find challenging. You could just add a sticker or a brightly coloured asterisk to the relevant sections. Then, when you flick back through your class notes, you’ll see at a glance the areas you need to work on most.
Think about how you like to present and take in information. Would flashcards work well for your style of learning and the subject you’re revising? For linguists and literature students, key words, phrases and quotes on one side and a translation or explanation on the reverse can work well. If you’ve a shedload of historical dates, maths formulae or science facts to learn, try putting key questions on one side and the answer on the other. You can buy flashcards by subject – but it’s generally better to make your own. Just creating your flashcard can be a crucial part of committing that all-important info to memory.
Some people prefer post-it notes. One benefit to these is you can stick those crucial hard-to-remember quotes, facts or formulae where you’ll see them all the time (bedside table, bathroom mirror, fridge door). It’s a great way of doing a little bit of revision every single day.
Others favour mind maps. An important benefit is that these enable you to see the connections between information, which is often at least as, if not more, important than learning the facts in isolation. You could challenge yourself to get all key points on a single side of paper. Try using different colours for different themes. This can help your brain recall facts by association. Some people find it helpful to create mind maps from other resources. For example, you might like to learn from listening rather than reading. But you can get easily distracted on YouTube. Why not try compiling a mind map as you listen to the video? Or test yourself by making a mind map with no external help. Then use a different colour to fill in any information you’d forgotten. This not only helps you learn, but it also reminds you what you might need to focus on in future.
Step 2: interactive revision
We all know that it can be hard to stay focused when you’re revising by yourself. Studying alongside others can be really beneficial, at any stage of your revision. One option could be to teach someone else about a specific topic. It could be a parent, sibling or a friend who is studying other subjects. Explaining something to someone who doesn’t know the topic in the level of detail you do, forces you to explain it simply and effectively. Albert Einstein famously said,
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
The examiner will be expecting a level of detail your mum might not demand. But being able to summarise a topic clearly will mean you have strong foundations in place for your exam answers. Then you can confidently build on these, going into more depth or detail as required. You could even film these interactions – not just for laughs – but as useful insights for future revision. Evaluate your performance: did you miss anything out? Could you have explained more clearly? Did your ‘tutee’ ask you any insightful questions you weren’t expecting?
There’s also much mutual benefit to be gained from study groups. These can work well at any point during your revision process. Earlier on, you might be more relaxed, reading each other’s work and feeding back; working through problems together, or simply testing each other on key facts and topics. You could even make games out of subject-specific stuff. Shakespeare’s Guess Who, biology Pictionary, historical Call My Bluff – you get the picture! As exams get closer, you might all be studying in companiable silence. But sometimes just being with others who are quiet and focused can help us focus calmly too.
Step 3: trial run (past papers)
I’ve called this step 3 because often it will and should be the last thing you do in your preparation for your exam. But sometimes, looking at past papers can be a useful way of identifying weak spots earlier on in the revision process too. Some people find it helpful to plan in some practice papers at different stages throughout their revision. They find it reassuring to see their progress, and they can gradually build up the level of challenge, e.g. allowing themselves extra time to check resources as they write initially, but eventually doing timed practices under test conditions.
There are several benefits: you get to know the layout of the exam paper and how you’re expected to record your answers. You can see recurring themes and the style of questions you could be asked. And you get a feel for how long it takes you to work through each section.
Alongside working through past papers, you should allow time to familiarise yourself with the mark scheme. And this is another reason why it can be helpful to begin looking at past papers earlier on, via your exam board’s website. Understanding the mark scheme means you know exactly what the examiners are looking for. It can save you vital time, especially in essay-based answers. Make sure you’re including the information they want. And make sure you’re including it clearly and legibly! Each time you complete a past paper, check your answers against the mark scheme and any sample answers that are available. If you find it hard to mark your own work objectively, ask someone else to check it for you. If they’re taking the same subject, it will be a helpful exercise for them too. If they’re not, they can still help. Just give them access to the resources you have: mark scheme, sample answers, etc. If they have questions about what you’ve written, talking these through will be a useful exercise for you too.
Our tutors can help you locate, work through and evaluate past papers. Do get in touch if you’d like to find out more about subject-specific tutoring for GCSE or A Level.
Keeping things in perspective
Earlier this year, Baroness Morgan (who served as education secretary under David Cameron) issued a call for a new curriculum in England’s schools. As part of a cross-party think tank, she wants to see more “character development opportunities” in schools, such as building children’s self-belief, determination and resilience. The report she put to government highlighted the crucial role of teamwork, the ability to collaborate, respond well to feedback, to adapt as required and to lead when necessary. She argued that the character skillset to achieve all this will best prepare pupils for “the fast-changing economy” and other new and emerging challenges such as AI and the transition to net zero.
The ‘best’ education will always strike a careful balance between subject-specific knowledge and academic success alongside the mindsets or ‘character skills’ that enable us to adapt and thrive. Getting this balance right for each individual student is where independent schools excel. Talk to us to find out how the UK’s top independent schools strike this balance and which school could find the perfect balance for your child.
I’ll finish on some words of wisdom from organisational psychologist, professor of psychology and New York Times-best-selling author Adam Grant. He says success is less about natural talent, and more to do with nurturing hidden potential. In a way, Grant echoes Baroness Morgan in his advice to foster mindsets that:
Uplifting advice to end on I think, when it’s so easy to feel frozen and overwhelmed by exam pressures at this time of year. Grant’s message to the teenagers – and ours too – is do keep pushing yourself but be kind to yourself too. Don’t think of any gaps in your knowledge, or any criticism of your work as a sign you won’t succeed. Feedback, failures and mistakes are simply suggestions that help you choose what to do next.
And as one of the world’s most revered headmasters says:
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Good luck to everyone who has exams. Stay as calm as you can and channel your inner Dumbledore. And to the parents of exam teens, try Adam’s latest book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things – or drop us a line today!
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“ REGENCY EDUCATION WAS ABLE TO HELP US WITH EVERY STEP OF THE APPLICATION PROCESS ENSURING THE EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS OF OUR CHILDREN - AN INVALUABLE SERVICE. ”
