The exam season is nearly upon us and we have pulled together some helpful tips to get you and your daughter through the exams, feeling as confident and well-prepared as possible.
- Ensure your daughter has a specific place to study that is cleared of clutter and distractions. Finding the right environment will enhance her revision
- Don’t let your daughter put off revising until the last minute
- Do not allow phones where she is studying. Revision time needs to be focused
- Break subjects and revision into bite-sized chunks
- Ensure she takes regular breaks to move around and has a short change of scenery
- Use the Easter break as an opportunity to purchase all books and materials: Flash cards, post-it-notes, highlighters, note books, past papers etc
- Encourage your daughter to try different revision techniques to suit her subject and style of learning – mind maps, post it notes, highlighting text etc
- Make sure your daughter does not waste revision time on making notes look immaculate – they are purely functional
- Ensure there are lots of healthy snacks and drinks in the house
- Ensure she eats a good breakfast on the day of exams
- Quizlet is a great app on the Surbiton High School iPad for your daughter to set their own tests
- Learn your daughter’s exam timetable. This has been sent via MIS to parents if you would like to refer to it
- Build in rewards for her revision
- Most importantly, concentrate on your own child, and don’t worry what other girls are doing
- Enjoy the Easter holidays and ensure your daughter takes a break, coming back ready for a busy summer term
- Revision does not need to start until two weeks prior to the exams. These are consolidation weeks for homework
- Pupils should ideally be looking at approximately 1 hour of study per day
- Ensure your daughter has revision material to take to school for the allocated revision sessions in her timetable each day
GCSE (YEAR 10-11) & A-LEVEL (YEAR 12-13)
- Try and encourage your daughter to get up and get dressed to revise – it will put her in the right frame of mind
- Subject revision guides are available to purchase for all subjects. These are really useful if you would like to help your daughter. Ensure you purchase the correct guides – some exam boards offer two types of papers and please note Modern Foreign Languages and Maths are IGCSEs
- Time your daughter doing past papers (available from the exam board GCSE’s or A-Levels). NB She may have only completed part of a paper previously whilst they were still covering curriculum areas, so she needs to pay attention to the full time allowed for the exam
- Your daughter must write her full name on the exam papers – not abbreviations
- It is a good idea to familiarise your daughter with the style of the papers she will be sitting
- Encourage her to ensure she knows what is being assessed for each question/paper and how to structure her answers in order to meet the assessment objectives.
- Ensure your daughter familiarises herself with the instructions on the paper. For example, answering three sections when only two are needed will result in fewer marks
- Your daughter will need to work out approximate timing for each question based on the allocated marks – a question worth 20% of the mark should be allocated 20% of the time.
- The School encourages all pupils to do a revision timetable together. Doing it together can make it easier to guarantee she is working when she is timetabled to be working. The timetable planner can be downloaded here
- Break the day into three sessions. Two of the three sessions should be study periods. One session should be allocated to free time
- Ensure she works the day to suit her habits – is she an early bird or late night owl?
- Try not to harass her too much to study or make too many demands on her – she will be feeling the pressure herself.
If you have any further queries or require more guidance, please contact your daughter’s form tutor or subject teacher.
Head of ExaminationsCategories: Exams Senior School