Issue 15

As I am sure you aware, the exams season is really upon us. G.C.S.E. and AS examinations have already started and A2 examinations begin very soon. You will realize that your sons and daughters are under significant pressure. There is much at stake for their futures. Because of this, I have decided to devote this edition’s Teaching and Learning Corner to giving some tips for exam success. As with the last edition’s advice on revision, I would be grateful if you would show these to your son/daughter and perhaps go through it with them.

Finally, I would like to wish all parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters and friends good luck in surviving these testing few weeks!

Adrian Boulstridge
Assistant Headteacher - Teaching and Learning

Top Tips For Exam Success

Lots of Easy Marks

If you want to do well the first thing you need is a little inside information about how exams are marked! Examiners use something called a Mark Scheme for each question, which is a list of points they will award marks for. If your answers are on their mark scheme, you'll get the marks. And if not, you won't. It's as simple as that. The good news is there are lots of easy marks!

Maths

There are marks for writing down your method even if you get the answer wrong. Amazing isn't it!

Science

There are often extra marks for writing down units e.g. the answer ‘3 cm' would score one more mark than ‘3'.

English Reading

Back-up each of your points with a quote. There is an extra mark for each quote.

English Writing

Go through your answer at the end and make some corrections – you'll get extra marks simply for doing this.

Never leave a ‘blank'

If you're not sure about an answer, guess. Yes I DO mean it! Examiners are surprisingly generous and usually award marks if your answer is not quite right but they can see you're on the right lines. But you won't get any marks if you leave a blank. Even if your answer is completely wrong you can't score less than that. So you've nothing to lose by guessing.

Practice makes perfect

Needless to say it really pays to understand what examiners will and won't award marks for. So how do you find out? The best way I know is exam practice. You could ask your teachers to take you through some past exam papers – especially if they have experience as an examiner.

Revision Websites

Revision websites are accessible from school and home computers. Often these can be really useful. Be careful, though – anyone can put anything on the internet. If you are in doubt, check out with your teachers the websites you use.

Don't panic

There's an old Chinese saying "a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step". So whilst your exams may be daunting, and the amount of work you need to do may seem immense, don't worry, don't panic and get started. Once you do, you'll find things will come together.

The best antidote to exam stress

Many students get stressed about exams. The best antidote is to find out what you're up against. So if you're feeling stressed, simply do some exam practice. (Exam boards publish past exam papers on their websites so they are quite easy to find.) You'll probably do better than you think! Give it a go! With a little exam practice under your belt, you'll soon find yourself on the inside track to exam success.

Finally - good luck with your exams!