By Rory Edwards
Rory Edwards is a local parent, teacher of 28 years and a school governor. He offers us an insight into certain dilemmas parents might face throughout the school year.
In the January issue, I wrote about what par-ents can do to help their children revise for the forthcoming exams in the summer: a revi-sion timetable, not leaving things too late and which topics to start with. Here are some more things to think about:
Make a list of what is needed for revision, include items like folders, dividers, paper clips. Not everything is done on a comput-er, most exams are written so revise in a similar fashion.
Encourage your child to file away revision resources sooner rather than later – they won’t seem important earlier on but it will save time later on if they’re not in a pile of mixed papers.
Ask the school what extra support they might be offering, e.g. after school revision.
this is something I mention often to parents, acknowledge that your child will not revise in the same way that you did so don’t ex-pect them to.
Lastly, have some of your children’s favour-ite snacks handy.
Despite all of this, there may be times when children have some serious negative thoughts about the whole exam process. Here are some troubleshooting tips for you when that hap-pens.
“There’s too much to do” If your child starts revising early in the year, it means that they will still be getting homework and learn-ing new content. If this workload becomes too much, ensure that you speak to the school as well as your child. Find a workable solu-tion that reduces the workload but doesn’t involve stopping something, for example, can some (but not all) revision sessions be re-moved or reduced in time, or can the school extend some of the deadlines. The latter may not be possible as extended a deadline for one student sets a precedent, however, it’s always worth explaining the situation to the school and asking the question.
“I hate this subject, I want to drop it.” If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about teenagers, it’s the black/white, love/hate, all or nothing thoughts that they have. As mentioned last month, they don’t have the life experience to find a strategy to deal with this yet. If this happens, as well as reassuring your child, speak to the subject teacher to see if anything has happened in lessons that may have led to this. Is it a deadline, a test or even a detention that has caused such an outburst? Most teach-ers will appreciate a joint teacher/parent effort to solve a problem, remember that they also want your child to succeed.
“I’ve left it too late/What’s the point?” The main point here is that it’s never too late until your child actually sits the exam because some revision is better than none. A little MORE knowledge could be the difference between a grade 3 or a grade 4 at GCSE, re-mind your child that it only takes one extra mark to go from one grade to the next. I’ve had many conversations with year 11 students who couldn’t see the point of revising and would say “I’m going to fail anyway”. Whilst each conversation is slightly different, I end up asking the following question: if you start working hard as you can from this point, what grade do you think you can get? They can be remarkably honest and the grade they say is now the new target. If exams are now loom-ing, revise the easier topics (contrary to previ-ous advice) as a solid foundation is better than none.