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Ep. 27: Practical tips for GCSE Revision - ideas to help parents help their teens
698 Plays3 years ago
How do you get the best GCSE results you can during Covid-19?
If your child was expecting to be sitting GCSEs in 2021 the chances are they and you have been been feeling quite stressed since the announcement that GCSEs will not go ahead "as normal" in 2021.
Teachers Emily and Paul Hughes answer the question of how to pass your GCSEs in straightforward terms:
6 Tips to do well in GCSEs
- Impress your teachers.
- Be proactive. This means doing more than you need to.
- Use past papers. Testing yourself is one of the most effective ways of cementing your knowledge.
- Approach every test as if it's a final exam.
- Make a revision plan and stick to it.
- Make your revision effective. Work smarter, not harder.
Where to find Emily and Paul
You can find more from Emily and Paul on their website Parent Guide to GCSE, where you can download their free revision planner, or subscribe for their full service and receive weekly tips on supporting your child through their GCSEs. Or you can access the same information in Emily's book GCSE Survival Guide for Parents.
You can also join the Parent Guide to GCSEs community on Facebook.
Emily and Paul also mentioned James Shone, who is a schools speaker.
More teenage parenting tips:
There are lots more episodes of the Teenage Kicks podcast. You can email me on [email protected]. I’ve also got some posts on the blog that might help parents with other teenage parenting dilemmas, so do pop over to Actually Mummy if you fancy a read.
Thank you so much for listening! Subscribe now to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear all my new episodes. I'll be talking to some fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent, becoming a young carer, and being hospitalised with mental health problems - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.
You can also find more from me on parenting teenagers on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.
For information on your data privacy please visit Podcast.co.
Please note that I am not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice. If you're worried about a teenager, please seek support from a medical professional.
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Transcript
Introduction to Teenage Kicks Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast. I'm Helen Wills and every week I bring you discussions with people who've had a very difficult time in their teenage years but have come out the other side in a good place and have an insight to offer to those who might be struggling with similar
00:00:27
Speaker
However, what I think lots of teenagers, especially in year 11 and year 13 are struggling with at the moment in lockdown as we speak is exams, exam stress, exam uncertainty and uncertainty over how those exam results are going to turn out for them.
00:00:50
Speaker
and what their futures might look like as a result.
Discussing Exam Stress and Uncertainty with Emily and Paul
00:00:53
Speaker
So today with that in mind I have with me Emily and Paul who run a website called Parents Guide to GCSE. Emily's also written a book and I can't remember the title of it but it's something like not being scared of GCSEs when your kids are doing them Emily is that right?
00:01:13
Speaker
the GCSE survival guide for parents. That's it, exactly. So I had it, basically. I just forgot the words. But that is how we're all feeling at the moment, parents. We're all a bit at sea. Our kids are either at sea with us or they're like my daughter taking control of the whole thing, but dealing with their own uncertainties and not telling me about any of it. So what I want to do today is set that record straight
00:01:43
Speaker
with the best tips that you as experts in how to get through GCSEs can give us to help those kids and their parents get through the next few months in a good place. So first of all, both of you, welcome to the podcast. And can you just maybe tell me about where Parents' Guide to GCSE came from?
Origins of Parents Guide to GCSE
00:02:10
Speaker
We are both ex-teachers between us. We've got over 30 years classroom experience, but we've reached the point where we didn't particularly want to be in the classroom anymore. We weren't loving the job anymore. And we were looking for alternative things that we could do. So we weren't still teaching when we were 68, 70 or whatever it turns out to be by then. We'd gone through various different options and things trying to support teachers. And then we had a bit of a light bulb moment one day.
00:02:38
Speaker
So our daughter was in, I think year five at the time, and we had a Facebook group for parents. And one of the parents had popped on the Facebook group, oh my goodness, can anyone help with this bit of maths homework? It's bar modelling or something? And we don't, I've got no clue, I can't help her. Now I know as an ex maths teacher that that is something that we've recently imported from Singapore and
00:03:03
Speaker
quite a nice way of showing what you're doing with your maths. But if you don't understand it, if you've not met it before, you've got no clue. I love thinking because all I see on my Instagram feed is parents making faces about how they don't understand their kids math. And I have to admit I gave up on looking at my kids maths. Five or six years ago, my youngest is 13. So that's when it left me behind. Yeah, it's, it's one of those
00:03:32
Speaker
The way that we teach it has changed so much since we did it, that it's just befuddling. It's the only word there is. And I realized that people were jumping in and trying to help, and I could obviously lend a hand, but there's this whole mega industry supporting students. There's revision guides, there's tutoring, there's all sorts. There is nothing supporting parents who want to be able to help and don't know how.
00:03:59
Speaker
So we did a bit of research thinking that can't be right. Maybe we've just not seen it anywhere. And we couldn't really find anything. There are companies that support students and coincidentally support parents, but there was no one who was saying parents, we see you, we hear your pain. We know you want to help and you don't know how. And schools don't really have time to be teaching parents as well as students. And so we decided we should do something about that. So we put our heads together and thought, how can we support parents?
Membership Model and Parental Support Strategies
00:04:29
Speaker
It's not like anybody wants to go and sit on a week-long course of how to learn GCSEs. So you can help your child learn GCSEs. It needs to be something that fits in with everyone's busy lives. So we decided on a membership model, which means members get a weekly email, just little bite-sized chunks of information. You need to know this this week. And if you do this one thing, it will make a difference. And those differences all add up throughout the course of the whole of their GCSEs.
00:04:56
Speaker
And that little bite sized chunk of information each week just keeps parents on top of things. And we've now built in a fortnightly Q and a session for members that we do live on Facebook. And it just means that it's almost like having a teacher in your pocket. So you don't need to worry about those things. You don't need to bombard your school with emails about the littlest things that you don't know. You've got someone you can ask. And yes, we've really heard a massive cry for help from a lot of parents who are just
00:05:25
Speaker
It's just the basics they want to understand, you know, what, how much revision should they be doing? What, what are good revision techniques? How can I get my child to revise without feeling like I'm nagging them all of the time? And so we're paying in place lots of different ways to support parents with that. And it's been really successful and it's been lovely to be able to support people like that, particularly given that we started in the September
00:05:50
Speaker
and then in the March schools all closed and exams were cancelled. It's a little bit interesting. Serendipity worked for you guys there, didn't it? Right, yeah. I love that you especially love that it's one tip a week because I'm personally bombarded with emails. Most of them are spam, lots of them are
00:06:12
Speaker
we thought you'd be interested in this, and I just delete everything. And so the thought of signing up to something else that is going to send me another email a week almost makes me want to bury my head in the sand and think, well, my kids have got this, I'm not joining. Paul, what would you say about parents who are feeling overwhelmed? Because I think there's a lot of us. Yeah, I mean, that's a forefront of our mind, really.
00:06:40
Speaker
When we're writing the weekly email, it's always a case of, you know, we need to make sure we give them something that's going to make the difference. It's going to hopefully generate a discussion with a teenager. And for any teenagers listening to this, it's not about the helicopter parent over the shoulder. You must do it like this. It's designed to generate a discussion between parent and child as a helpful thing, not as a, you must be doing this because we heard this
00:07:09
Speaker
too many students probably will be sitting there nodding thinking, well, I do lots of, I do a lot of revision, but I know that it's not going in, it's not effective. So we're aiming to sort of empower parents so they know, so they can have a discussion with their children about what is going to work for their child when they are having to revise. And we have to simplify it. We can't just give parents, here's 50 strategies. It's got to be one simple thing, have the discussion. And then the next week we obviously,
00:07:38
Speaker
come up with our next gem, hopefully, of information. The power in it is that it's not that way. It's not mum thinking she knows everything and nagging me. It's advice coming from experts because we are, I always tell the story, we're predisposed as teenagers to not listen to our parents. Parents are not allowed to be right. So my mum told me that I should read the Harry Potter books because I would love them.
00:08:01
Speaker
So I did not read the Harry Potter books for about two years on principle, because it didn't want her to be right. And I was an adult at that point. So it never changes, does it? There's no hope. Exactly. So this way it's it's not you're not having that battle. You're on the same side and you're facing the exams and the revision and all of the stress together on the same team. And it's such an important difference psychologically.
00:08:26
Speaker
And it helps you just to stop feeling like you're nagging all the time as a parent. I think that's really important. I signed up at the beginning of lockdown to an online newspaper, I think you'd call it. It's called The Day. I'm guessing you've heard of it. They send out daily kind of bite-sized pieces of opinion based on a big piece of news. So Trump's impeachment has been won this week.
00:08:55
Speaker
and they do a for and against argument, they give you the shot of the photograph of the day, the news article of the day and a for and against argument and I know which side you agree with and it's nice and I thought we'd have these nice discussions over lunch, the four of us, their dad would come down as well
00:09:15
Speaker
and I'd forward them the email every day, well I've stopped because I was forwarding them the email and they weren't reading it and so then I was forcing the discussion what do you think then about Trump's impeachment because some people think this and others think that and they're going mum this is from the day isn't it and they're rolling their eyes
00:09:35
Speaker
So do you suggest that teenagers also read the email that you send out and access the website? Or is it just for parents?
Enhancing Communication Between Parents and Teens
00:09:46
Speaker
The aim is just for parents, but we tend to write it in such a way that it works for both. Most of our parents tell us the best way they found this works for them is that they sit down, they book out. You will, I won't nag you a week, but you will sit down for five, 10 minutes with me on this one day a week.
00:10:04
Speaker
or we're going to go through this email. This year we've actually started recording the email as a video as well. So if you'd rather just watch the video, have it on in the background, you can do that too. So it's prefer that don't they? Yeah, it's five minutes max is generally how it comes out. So five minutes of video if they can't be bothered to read. But then it means everyone knows where everyone else is coming from and children get a chance to say, do you know what? Actually that I'm already doing that or all that sounds like a good plan. Maybe I should try that one.
00:10:34
Speaker
or I don't think that'll work for me because it just opens up the line of communication because, you know, once they hit about seven maximum, they stop telling you what happens at school. You've gone from, oh I did this and I did this and I did this too, and that's all you get every day. What did you do at school today? I don't know. There's lots of people nodding at the moment listening to it. Oh yeah, completely.
00:10:58
Speaker
And they don't want to sit and say, well, we have this whole lesson on how to do mind maps and the importance of space repetition and so on. Because then they're going to get asked questions and they're going to have to explain it. Yeah. No, you're right. And I say this a lot, actually. As parents, we find that transition incredibly difficult. And I coach parents, but not about how to make their relationship with their teenager better.
00:11:25
Speaker
more about how to cope themselves with their own emotions and struggles about what's changing in their child. But what I say all the time is you mustn't resist it because actually this is what you've been aiming for since the moment you taught them how to pick up a spoon and feed themselves.
00:11:43
Speaker
your goal is that they stop depending on you for everything and that they do go off and lead a life that doesn't involve you. It's just very hard for parents to cope with that. And it's very tempting to leap back in and say, read this great email today. Here's how you should be revising. And so I like that it's on both levels. Yeah, we spoke to James Schoen a while ago and he has the three B's, which I thought summed it up really, really well. So,
00:12:12
Speaker
To start with, you go before your child. You're the barrier between them and the world. Then you get to the point where you're walking beside your child and it's the two of you together. And then you have that kind of point where actually you can be behind them and supporting them because they're ready.
Practical Advice for Students to Impress Teachers
00:12:28
Speaker
They're independent. They can go and do it on their own. So it's a lot of what we talk about is building them up to that point of independence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker
But equally, when they're 15, 16 and in a very stressful situation, as they are now more than ever in exam season, they may not be coping by themselves and they may be scrapping around for bits of advice from their friends, which may be good or may not be, depending on even the day and what cup of tea they've got in their hands. So I like that,
00:13:02
Speaker
you enable parents to get involved and play a supportive role and be seen as credible if that's a possibility at this age. I'm going to ask you and I'm sorry I'm sort of springing this on you, I'm going to ask you for five things and I'll start with you Emily because I can see you're already thinking about it.
00:13:25
Speaker
five things that parents and or their teenagers can do in this very strange world of not sitting exams or sitting them according to how the teachers might mark them and relying on centre assessed grades
00:13:49
Speaker
rather than that day that we all build to when we're sat there nibbling on nails in a massive great hall going, right, this is it, this is it. And we've been working towards that for the last 16 years, and this is it, and it's gone. So what can people do, and I'm gonna come to you next, Paul, what can people do, parents or kids, to really maximise their chances of doing well with their grades and getting what they want
00:14:18
Speaker
in such an uncertain ocean. And I bet it's, you know, it's a really hard question to answer even for you guys. Here's a tricky one. I mean, good luck, because I'm going to take all the good ones. You're allowed one. Yeah, you're allowed one. We're alternating. Oh, no. But number one would be impress your teachers. Your job right now is give them as much evidence as you possibly can of how awesome you are so that they've got that evidence
00:14:46
Speaker
when they need it to give you a grade. Simple as. It actually is quite simple isn't it? And I'm already glowing because my daughter's cottoned on to that already. Although I'm a bit worried she's only cottoned on to that in the subject that she likes with the teachers that she likes because she's writing more English Lit essays than she is doing extra physics tests. Kind of understand that. So my one is going to build on what Emily said in a way but it's just about being proactive. So
00:15:15
Speaker
All the great work that students are doing behind the scenes at home, not on live lessons. It's making revision cards, doing whatever type of schoolwork it is. Be proactive and show your teachers what you're doing because they need to know that you are putting the effort in. And sometimes it's not as easy to see that. So just be really clear. So if you create a bunch of revision cards about something, there's nothing wrong with showing your teachers what you've done, asking for some feedback on it.
00:15:45
Speaker
just to show that you are going above and beyond what's been asked from you in lessons. And it's just all additional evidence that the teacher kind of stores up there. You know, this child is making a particular effort in a particular direction, and it just helps to build the kind of the evidence as we work towards these center assessed grades.
00:16:06
Speaker
Right that is actually a really good point. I don't think I would have thought of showing a teacher my revision cards and actually I wonder how many kids are also thinking there's no point making revision cards now because we're not having exams. What would you say to that Emily?
Revision Techniques and Past Papers
00:16:23
Speaker
My number three would be don't underestimate the power of past papers because even if you're not sitting exams past papers are designed to help you test your knowledge
00:16:35
Speaker
figure out what you do and what you don't know, and it helps your brain to get to the point where when someone asks you a random question that you can't predict, you have to then be able to come up with an answer. Because when you're doing a worksheet, say for maths, a worksheet on fractions, your brain knows it's going to be about fractions. And it's just drawing from that one particular piece of understanding. Whereas a past paper could be a question on fractions, a question on trigonometry, a question on this, a question on that. And testing yourself
00:17:05
Speaker
is one of the best ways to do your revision. Even if you don't actually feel like you know the answers yet, it's one of the most effective ways to get things into your long-term memory, to get your brain used to accessing the right bits, to develop those links between bits of knowledge in your head. So I would still be using past papers as my revision, even if I'm not going to do exam questions. Because at some point they're going to do exams again.
00:17:31
Speaker
And if they're in year 13, maybe not, unless they're going to university. But for year 11s, odds are, whatever they do next year, it's going to involve some kind of exams. So the exam skills are still really useful to develop, even though they're not as immediate and urgent anymore.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yes, it's almost like exam training that is still valuable in a couple of years time. And I like the way you describe, I can almost visualise little compartments in my brain where I've got trigonometry, except that little room there is empty now. And then other rooms where I've got fractions and there's a few things left in there, scuttling around out of date.
00:18:10
Speaker
But I like that idea that it's about being able to pull from all the little bits of learning that you've historically put in there. And show them, and as Paul was saying, show your teachers the revision that you're doing. So would you maybe send in that past paper if you've done it as revision and say, look, I've marked it myself, but is there anything else you'd say? Yeah, so mark schemes are available online.
00:18:36
Speaker
if you if it's something like maths or some of the sciences then it's usually fairly easy to mark yourself it's you're right or you're wrong if it's an essay style question i would probably try and use my teacher to help with the marking because it's a skill marking essays particularly exam style essays it's a trickier one so it's it's better to get a teacher to mark it but if you've marked it yourself or if you're sending it to the teacher i would then go with
00:19:03
Speaker
Here are what I think were my strong points, maybe highlight them in one color. Here are the bits I was really stuck on, or I'm really not sure that I've got it right. Highlight those and say, these are my weaker areas. What can you suggest that I could do?
00:19:19
Speaker
would be helpful because the more you show willing the better at this point. Well and actually that is learning a really good skill in its own right because if when you go into the working world you're going to have appraisals with your boss and I remember the members of my team who came to me already with a here's what I think I've done well Helen and here's what I think I haven't done so well and here's what I think I ought to work on. Oh my god I loved them
00:19:45
Speaker
So it's a worthwhile skill to build on. Definitely, yeah. So yeah, definitely send them in. You can, if you're going low tech, the notes app on your phone, if you are certainly on an iPhone, I assume there's similar on an Android, if you take a picture of the page, then you can just attach it to a note, stick it straight in as a photograph, and then you can send that note as an email to your teacher really easily. But there's an app called Scanner Pro, which is, it's a couple of quid, I think,
00:20:13
Speaker
but you can literally take a picture of the page and it turns it into a PDF so you can collate all the pages together and things easily. So there are lots of ways that you can do that fairly simply to send it in, you know, without being able to send in the actual past paper itself. Perfect. Practical tip. Love it.
Effective Study Routines and Seriousness of Topic Tests
00:20:30
Speaker
Paul. My turn. Excellent. Uh, right. So whether you're in the middle of a pandemic or whether it's a normal school year, um, end of topic tests or any kind of tests throughout GCSE, throughout A level,
00:20:42
Speaker
absolutely vital. So the way that we see it is that if you, I'm going to pick a random topic, biology, cell biology, if you are doing that and you're going to, any teacher will always have an end of topic test for each main topic, main subject. So when you get to the end of cell biology, rather than sort of treating the end of topic tests with a kind of like, oh yeah, we've got a test coming up, I'll do a bit of work
00:21:08
Speaker
prepare as if it's for your final exam. Make the notes, make the revision cards that are going to take you all the way through to your GCSE exam. That means that when you come into the final few weeks, you've got all the information there. Nothing changes. If you make sure that you are putting in maximum effort, then at the end of every single topic, whichever subject you're doing, you have got the information available for you or however you're going to be assessed, whether it's the teachers assessing it,
00:21:36
Speaker
There's a good chance, as things stand, there's gonna be some sort of mini exam. I don't know even what they're talking about, but it just gives students that bit of preparation. So treat every end of topic exam with absolute reverence. Make sure it is thoroughly prepared for. It could be the piece of the jigsaw the teacher's looking for. Nobody knows at the moment.
00:21:57
Speaker
yes actually um i would have needed that advice 30 years ago or whatever it was more more than that 35. don't do that i would have needed that advice because i was that kid who really didn't see the point in revising for something that wasn't going to count in the end and so i got dreadful mock results and knew that i would get great
00:22:21
Speaker
real thing results because I was going to do the work for them and what I mean I'm guessing most kids surely must have realised that everything was a little bit uncertain and hopefully prepped for their mocks this year but I know that there are some that wouldn't have
00:22:39
Speaker
assuming that exams were going ahead. So actually, from now on, you think that's rescuable. You still can, because your teachers are going to be assessing you, you can turn it around, even if you didn't get a great mock result. This is not the time for head in the sand. I mean, you've got to be proactive, just making sure you're working hard, whatever teacher, whatever subject, just to make sure that you are going above and beyond, basically.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Which brings me probably tying it all nicely together, I think. Considering we didn't plan this, I think we've done all right. Number five would be have a revision plan and stick to it. Because that going above and beyond means you're going to have to do a little bit extra for each subject, not just what's being set from school, as you would normally under normal circumstances. And if you have a plan, you're more likely to stick to it. If you get to the end of a school day otherwise, and you've been remote learning,
00:23:38
Speaker
And you're tired and you can't really be bothered anymore. Making the decisions at that point of what, what should I revise? What am I going to do a bit extra of? Those decisions are enough usually to kick procrastination into high gear. And at that point you're like, oh, I'll decide later. And then later doesn't happen. Yeah. So one of the first things we did when we launched pairing guide to GCSE was we were trying to support people with creating a great revision plan.
00:24:05
Speaker
And we tried out all the different tools and they were all a bit glitchy or they involved three days for like highlighters and three tubs of glitter. And it just wasn't, it wasn't going to work for anyone. We, we couldn't come up with a nice succinct, here's how you do it. So we decided to build one of our own. So we've got a free revision plan generator where I think 10 minutes is probably generous.
00:24:31
Speaker
that's how long it will take to do a plan for the whole year. You put in your subjects, you put in your term dates, you click go and it will generate you a PDF that you can print for the whole year. You can manually add bits and take bits out and that kind of stuff. There's a paid version with more bells and whistles if you like bells and whistles. But just this free thing in 10 minutes, it does one block a day on weekdays for the first term. So up to Christmas,
00:24:59
Speaker
two in the up to Easter term and then three in the more intensive revision period just as a default setting and it's simple and it's easy and it's quick and then you can go in and you can add details so it's not just maths the best way to do it is to add details so not just maths adding fractions today not just trigonometry but doing the sign ratio today so that it takes away those decisions again but it's
00:25:26
Speaker
www.parentguide2gcse.com forward slash plan. Simple. And then you need to sign up for an account just because it then keeps your plan for you. And you can go back in and edit it anytime you like, reprint new bits, whatever you want to do, because obviously things keep changing.
00:25:45
Speaker
so yeah okay so people can sign up for that without an obligation to sign up for the whole subscription yeah that's that's a good way to get started isn't it and it's probably worth doing now even though we're already in january because you've still got a good term to have left yeah we've heard from parents who who said that children have taken literally three four five days to make a revision plan with every colour under the planet
00:26:12
Speaker
And it's just a waste of time, just 10 minutes, get it done simply. Didn't we all love that though? My husband says that he made a really, really good revision plan and then didn't do any of it. Yes, but that's the thing. You do it as a method of procrastination. The longer I take, the prettier I make it, the less revision I have to start doing. Exactly.
00:26:32
Speaker
That is so true. It's very like all those memes that you see on Instagram nowadays. It's like, just start. In fact, I've got one just above my desk there. It says, just start. Because we're all prone to procrastination. And I do think that kids ought not to castigate themselves for being procrastinators. Because at heart, we all are. We all prefer to just chill out a little bit longer before we start the work. But actually, I like what you just said, Emily, earlier on.
00:27:00
Speaker
Once you start the work, even if you have in your head, all I'm going to do is five minutes, you'll find you'll probably do longer and you'll find you're really pleased with yourself afterwards. And then that's a great feeling. And then you're ready to do it again the next day. I mean, if you create a plan that's got, I don't know, three hours of revision today, chances are it's not going to happen. And you've already failed your plan.
00:27:26
Speaker
you're kind of behind, you feel disappointed. If you are realistic and you plan in the small chunk of time, half an hour, an hour maybe, and you smash it, you come out at the end of it thinking, yeah, I've done that. That was easy. I can do that again. So be realistic.
00:27:47
Speaker
more justified in taking that break. My daughter likes to bake in between revision sessions. That would wind me up terribly, but that's her stress release. So then you feel more justified in enjoying that thing that you've set aside to do as your break, rather than feeling guilty that you haven't done enough revision.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah definitely. I need to take that advice myself to be fair. I really like that, that is so simple and straightforward and I like that what you're telling people is it's not over and a revision, it's not even just about following what your teachers say and ticking the boxes of the tests that they put in front of you
00:28:26
Speaker
actually revising as if you were going to sit those exams in that big hall that I described with your nerves and your bit nails is going to happen because none of it will go to waste, right? Absolutely. Am I allowed to add a six in there? I know it wasn't even used, but one of the things we bang on about tirelessly is that it's all about working smarter, not harder.
Effective Revision Techniques vs. Time Spent
00:28:50
Speaker
So to any student listening is not about doing the
00:28:54
Speaker
It's four hours of revision. It's about making whatever revision you do really, really effective. And one of the key things that we talk about is that rereading your notes, it may seem that you're sitting at your desk, it may seem that your parents know you're upstairs, they know you're at your desk, they think it's going in the right direction, but it's not effective. It's the, well, I think proven to be the least effective way of moving information to your long-term memory. So rereading notes is a note note.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's the simplest, so it feels like you're doing something useful. It tends to be the go-to method for teenagers because it's not scary because testing yourself is scary because you might be wrong and then you feel stupid. And trying out different things is scary because you have to actually use your brain, whereas you can kind of semi-switch your brain off while reading notes. So that's the difference that you can get away with little and often if it's effective.
00:29:52
Speaker
Otherwise you're spending hours and hours and hours to do something that you could have done in 20 minutes using a better technique. That's a great motivation then isn't it? So I know that the kids these days do get
00:30:04
Speaker
set taught different revision strategies and i love the the testing yourself um what's the app that they all use for they make a my daughter says it all the time oh i'm just gonna make a kahoot quizlet a kahoot yeah a quizlet yeah kahoot and quizlet yeah they do that all the time and then they share it with each other so they get different things yeah are there any are there any other real simple things like that that people can find that they may not have thought of
00:30:30
Speaker
Then mind mapping is something that we bang on about tirelessly because it's about making links between things. As we talked about before, with those compartments in your brain, if you can make the links between bits, then it, it all ties together quite nicely. So mind maps are really good, but they are, you have to actually kind of practice doing them. You don't need to be an artist. You just need ideally a couple of different colors and an idea of what you're, what you're creating.
00:30:57
Speaker
But what we then advise is using spaced repetition is the fancy term for it. There's a forgetting curve. So, you know, when you hear something, if you don't hear it again for ages, much like with our GCSEs from way back when, it just kind of goes, you forget most of what you've heard. If you remind yourself after a certain period of time, that then helps you to retain more of the information and so on and so forth. So we say,
00:31:26
Speaker
take your mind map that you've created, 30 seconds staring at it, try and remember what you can, turn it over, try and recreate it somewhere. So it could just be on a spare bit of paper or whatever's easiest. If you can recreate it, that's then relinking it in your brain. So I use the analogy of it being like a library. If I go to the library and I ask the librarian for a really obscure book, they're going to have to search it up on the computer.
00:31:53
Speaker
figure out where it might be, head off to the dusty back shelf where it is, climb up the ladder, blow the dust off the cover, bring it back down. And if I keep going back every week and asking for the same book, eventually the librarian, they're going to have it under the desk. They're going to see me coming and go, here you go. I've got it ready for you. Easy to find. Yeah. The more you train your brain to go back and get those important bits of information, the more it knows it's important and files it somewhere near the top.
00:32:21
Speaker
so that you can get to it really easily. So keep revisiting things in that really simple way. Just recreate what you've done because it's more active than just staring at it, rereading your notes, for example. So if you can recreate it, it's great for, we have a poster that we give to members of all the different maths formulae that you have to learn. If you do that with that every once a month, if you start early enough, but once a week, if you don't, you'll have memorized all the formulae.
00:32:52
Speaker
Easy peasy problem solved. Yes. So yeah. Oh, that makes so much sense. And I love it. Such a simple tip and fits in with what you think all about just make it five minutes. And it doesn't it doesn't need to be a big old chunk of revision. If you just do that again and again and again and again and again, it can just be a minute here and there. Yeah, I really like that. Emily, will you just tell us about your book? Yes. So we we got a fair way into the membership.
00:33:21
Speaker
And we'd created all these useful resources to help parents out, but we were very aware that there were a lot of people asking us about this and not everybody wants to join a membership. Some people, like when I want to learn about something, I get quite in depth. I research it all and I do it quite intensively. And that's my preferred way of learning about stuff. So I thought, you know what?
Emily's Book and Additional Resources
00:33:41
Speaker
I should probably just write it all down in a sensible place. So I sat and wrote it in the book. It's full of the same sort of structure as we talk about with the membership. So you start with,
00:33:51
Speaker
kind of your mental planning, your mindset, getting your head straight about your exams and how you're going to learn and the fact that you are capable of learning and being awesome. And then we go through organisation tips, so physical, organising your notes, but also organising your time. Study skills is next. And then we talk exam technique and things like NEAs, which is non-examined assessment, which is coursework to those of us that are parents rather than students. And then we talk planning for whatever's next.
00:34:21
Speaker
the book goes through that in those stages. It talks a little bit about your teenager's brain development and why they are quite so teenager-y, for better word. And it just takes you through the whole thing. Again, bite-sized chapters with that one thing at the end of the chapter, that one little tip, if you do this thing, it makes a difference. And it's been really well received. It was blown away by the response. We had Terry Dwyer, so for those of us that
00:34:50
Speaker
grew up at a certain time. If you watched Hollyoaks, the original Hollyoaks, she was in the original Hollyoaks. She wrote my foreword, so I had a full on fangirl moment. So nice, I would have as well. It was amazing. Claudia Winkleman.
00:35:04
Speaker
did me a little jacket quote, I've done parenting and I've done GCSEs and we need all the help we can get. Yes. Perfect. And we do and she's right. Absolutely. Oh, I'm so glad it's gone down well. So that's just another way to access what is on your site and on your subscription. So you can do either and you get just as much information from both. That's fantastic.
00:35:25
Speaker
So just remind us then A where people can get your book B where people can find your website and maybe C what's the one thing parents can do today apart from sign up to your website which I'm really tempted to do now that might help their kids next week with their revision. Okay so first up the book so it's the GCSE survival guide for parents and you can find it at parentguide2gcse.com forward slash book
00:35:53
Speaker
or you can find it on all good bookshops, so long as they're called Amazon. Easy peasy, it's available on Kindle or as a hard copy. Where you can find us, the website, parentguide2gcse.com. If you're listening and you've got slightly older children, we also have parentguide2post16.com. And the most useful place you can find us is probably on Facebook. So particularly if you're being affected by all of these
00:36:23
Speaker
twos and fros and u-turns and what's happening with exams and so on and so forth. What we do on Facebook on our parent guide to GCSE page is every time there's a random government announcement that relates in any way to schools, I'll hop on and do a live and explain what does that actually mean for you? What do you need to do about it and answer questions? So if you'd like a kind of a digest of the news as relates to
00:36:49
Speaker
to schools and exams, particularly if you don't want to have to listen to Gavin Williamson anymore. I'm doing it for you. That is perfect. Indeed. And if you're listening when this first comes out, we'll probably be in the middle of the consultation. So Ofqual are putting out a consultation along with the DFE to say, this is what we think we should be doing in the summer to replace exams. What do you think? So if you're listening to this and you come and find us and the consultation is still going, as soon as it's published, I'm going to talk you through
00:37:19
Speaker
what each bit means so that you can go on as a parent and respond to the consultation and have your say so that they get everybody's viewpoint. And we're all heard because frankly, we've had exams aren't happening. Oh, but wait, they're going to be replaced with exams, but they're not happening. So we're going to do tests instead of exams, but aren't exams tests and tests exactly. They might be marked by teachers who have been trained better, but we don't know if we can train them. So therefore. So if you'd like to kind of cut through the confusion,
00:37:50
Speaker
That's where you can find us just search Parent Guide to GCSE on Facebook. We've also got a Facebook group where it's parents who are all going through the same thing, all having the same sort of questions, able to support each other. So it's a really lovely community in there of people to just talk to, vent at if needs be.
00:38:09
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm going to link to that in the show notes, but I'm also going to link to it from my teenage parenting Facebook group because I think there will be people there who will find it really relevant as well. Thank you so much. That has been a brilliant insight into what kids need to do. And I think parents are going to find it massively useful. So I'll link to the website as well in the show notes. Once you finish listening, just drop down and you'll find the links and go and find Emily Paul and put your mind at rest. Thank you very much.