Your Child will thank you for reading this

Your Primary school child will thank you as a teenager for reading this. 

The Rt. Hon Michael Gove. Does anyone else see the Mona Lisa as well? 

 Source: Department of Education OGL Licence v.1.0

It will seem odd to be talking about GCSE's to parents with Primary School children but there are major changes that you need to be aware of now. 

Love him or hate him, the Education Secretary, Michael Gove is impacting your child's GCSE results right now. For those of you will children in the upper years of primary school, your child is likely to be in the first waves that hits this beach.

What the reforms mean to your child:

If we cast our minds back to when we took GCSE's for a moment, you probably remember three things: 1.) Mind numbingly dull Coursework. 2.) A highly colourful, over ambitious and completely ineffectual revision plan and 3.) Collecting your results with feverish eyes scanning for A's and B's and praying not to see any D's or E's. But your child will not experience these 'joys'. They will be facing a much harder task. 

What your child will most likely encounter is; no Coursework, higher pass marks and grades that will be numerical (8-1) rather than alphabetical (A*-G). With the emphasis is very much being placed on 'perform or bust' style of assessment.

"We are all worms, but I do believe that my child is a glow-worm." Click to tweet this at the Department of Education to remind them of how special your child is.

How to ensure your child is still glowing brightly at GCSE Results Day

We believe that a change in mindset is going to be needed from Teachers, Parents, Tutors and Students. We believe that as adults we all need to lead the way. I am sure many of you now take an active interest in your child's homework. But there is a dramatic drop off in parental interest in a child's homework when they reach secondary school. Why do we stop when they can read and multiply 10x10?

Don't be afraid to get involved. Your son or daughters education is far too important to be left to; politicians, schools, teachers or to the students themselves. Whilst we are not advocating you to become the archetypal 'pushy parent'. We urge you to look at their exercise books and keep an eye out on websites and blogs for education advice and not to wait until you get a concerning report card before taking action. 

We have to gently start changing the way in which children are preparing for assessments. Most schools have end of year exams and the number of practice exams is likely to increase as these changes start to come in to effect. How can we help them? Rather than waiting until Year 11 to work on realistic revision plans, work with your child in Year 7. 

Effective preparation and execution is also going to be key. More than ever before your child's generation are going to need to have a bedrock of confidence which is built from subject knowledge. Easter should no longer be thought of as when we start revising for exams. Class notes need to be condensed much earlier to revision notes to allow more time for exam practice. 

It is very likely that you will hear from many different sources about the positives and negatives of these reforms. Don't bother to engage in these discussions, the die is already cast, their fate already sealed. Let's all concentrate on helping your child achieve as much as they possibly can.

Ask us any question you have on education on Tuesday 6th August at 1pm for a special Mum's in the Know Twitter chat. #MITKGlowWorms 

How to make University application less painful!

The bane of most Sixth Formers lives is their UCAS application. 

 Jess Chambers made this video which gives some advice to Sixth Formers about how it can be made a little less painful! 

We thought it was brilliant and urge both students and parents to watch it now!

How to build an EFFECTIVE A-Level Revision Plan

Most revision plans fail. So to prevent this we have devised Swot Revise WHAT? and Swot Revise How? They are designed to give you a set of principles and a structure for you to work with but you are to put your stamp on them and make them your own.

Part 1.) Swot Revise WHAT? (Click to open.)

Part 2. Swot’s HOW Revision Planner:

But before we go any further.

‘Be realistic about your own situation and make sure you leave yourself enough time to revise at a pace that’s right for you.’

These plans are designed to give you an excellent set of revision notes so make sure you leave yourself time to practice some questions. This is not a last minute plan.

So, how does it work.

i) Establish what you need to learn

There’s no point building a plan until you’ve outlined what you need to learn. For example, allocating a chunk of time to History doesn’t give you the structure you need to get the most from the revision session. You need to establish the topics that the exam board expect you to understand. This will be outlined in the course specification, often as subheads. Your teacher may also have provided a summary of this for you. If you are unsure, ask your teacher to help you identify the topics in your course specification.

CAUTION: If you are sourcing the course specification yourself make sure it’s the correct: Exam board, Module, Option and Year. There is a vast array of specifications make sure you get the right one.

ii) Fill it in!

We have designed a great planner but its a partnership between us and you. You need to make this your own.

Swot’s HOW? AS Revision Planner

Swot’s HOW? A2 Revision Planner
Swot's HOW? GCSE Revision Planner

i). Divide the topics across the weeks:

First divide your Swot HOW? topics into the time you have available / need to revise. The planner is designed to operate over a number of weeks.

ii). Populate the subject and topic columns

The next job is to populate the left hand panel of the plan. First fill in the subject column with all your subjects. The topic column will cover only the first 50% of topics in the first week with the rest populated in the second week. This is the content for your plan, all that’s left is to schedule it (well, and then actually follow it!).

iii) Scheduling the plan: allocating daily priorities   

Allocate each of the topics a priority slot at the top of the plan. Your learning style and personal preferences will dictate how you do this. Some people like focus on one subject for the day, others find it less monotonous to study several subjects each day.

iv) Scheduling the plan: allocating time slots

Finally, you can now take each topic priority in a given day and allocate it a study slot in the revision periods section of the plan. At A-Level we suggest 2 hours to each subject, assuming 50 minutes of revision in each hour with a 10 minute break. The outline offers you a lot of flexibility so if at times you need a to have a longer lunch break or some time for social / wind down activities you can add them. The important thing though is to meet your priorities for the day.

v) The revision

Write yourself clear and concise notes on each topic, condensing the key points so you have reference notes to jog your memory later on. Use techniques such as spider diagrams, coloured pens and revision cards to help make these notes and facts easier to digest and recall.

The basis of studying for every exam is having good subject knowledge.

You have the ability to succeed - work hard and believe in yourself. Good luck!

Three Questions you MUST know the answers to before revising

We advise that every student makes sure that they have the following information before you leave for the  holidays. 

If you have to badger your teacher for this information, keep going, it can make a dramatic difference to your results  

1.) Your Exam board

2.) Module: title, name and number

3.) Exam: date and time. 

Why? 

It can save you from revising the wrong material and missing the exam.

How to love sitting at your desk.

This may seem a bit of an odd thing to say, but I really do Love sitting at my desk and you can too. It's not much to look at. But I am a big believer in perception. Perception is everything. You can look at your desk in two ways, the place where you just study or the place which will help launch you on a wonderful and exciting life. 

Try looking at your desk with....

Pride.

Every time you sit at your desk, you are taking a step closer to your goals. It's the place where you can make progress. Some days, you will feel like you have moved mountains with the amount of progress you have made. Others, an ant carrying heavy shopping has made more. But you are still getting closer. So be proud of it, it's a special place.

'I do Hard work here and that's a good thing.' 

When I do hard work, I succeed. It's really that simple. It will be the place where you write your best revision notes and some great coursework. Those successes will allow you to get the grades you want and give you options.

'Sometimes, I will fail here.'

I always find this quote useful to remember:

'Failure, failure, failure, partial success, renewed failure, ultimate and complete victory'

Randolph Churchill

If you get work back that is not quite the result you expected or wanted. Don't worry this desk that you're sitting at if you keep on working, things will come right.


So have a look at your desk and smile. Just by changing your perception a little, suddenly it's a place where you want to be.

Four simple ways you can help your child 

get an A*

1. Take an interest in their class notes

Try and help them to stay on top of them throughout the year as they will be vital at Easter. This is where their revision notes will come from. If they have ‘lost’ them it will be very difficult for them to revise.

2. ‘Facebook Holidays’

Ask them to consider taking a holiday from facebook, twitter and other social media sites during crucial revision periods. Encourage them to call their friends instead, but keep an eye on the phone bill!

3. Realistic Revision Plans

The majority of revision plans fail through over ambition. Work with them to see if it is a realistic plan. If it unrealistic, they will be more susceptible to procrastination and will struggle to build the confidence they will need for the exam. Our website contains free revision planner templates with further advice.

4. Knowledge before practice

Students often focus on past paper practice before they know the core course material. This wastes precious revision time.They cannot get an A* without first knowing the course material.  Help them develop a solid set of revision notes first. Then they can begin the difficult task of answering the question in the way required by the examiner.

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