Eight tips for parents: exam revision
1. Revision timetable
Encourage your child to make a revision timetable – and stick to it. It's a great way to break up the days and weeks of revision and divide the work into bite-sized pieces.
2. Create the right working environment
Make sure your child has a quiet space to work, with no distractions. Phones away and screens out of arms reach unless essential for work. Quiet music to be allowed but only if your child can demonstrate they can work well with it on.
3. How to retain information
Help your child to find the method of learning and retaining information that works best for them. It could be reading and making notes, using flash cards or Post-it notes, looking at video clips, playing back recordings of their own voice, mind mapping or perhaps a mixture of these. A clutch of youtube videos produced for Radio 1, 1Xtra and BBC Bitesize is full of useful ideas.
4. Check the exam specifications
All exam boards publish these, along with practice papers and mark schemes too. Your child's school may make these available but if not the exam board website should help. The more confident your child is going into the exam (and revision), the better its likely to go.
5. Revision apps and online resources
Resources such as BBC Bitesize, StudySmarter and Gojimo can aid revision and help to clarify areas your child feels less confident about. Teenagers sometimes concentrate on their best subjects and leave their weaker ones till the end but it is a good idea to tackle weak areas early on.
6. Parenting to the max
Children feel the stress of exams more these days than ever before. So now is the time to bring out your best mumming or dadding skills. Be around as much as possible. Children like parents taking an interest in their revision (but not taking over) and being available for your child to bounce off their latest memorised facts can help. And keep the kitchen cupboard stocked with delicious food. When the going gets tough children really appreciate a cup of tea, a plate of biscuits or their favourite meal.
7. Encourage breaks and free time.
Built into the revision timetable should be regular breaks. It’s far more effective to do 30 minutes of successful revision – rather than plough on for hours on end and not get anywhere. This is backed up by research by academics at the University of Sheffield who found that learning is more effective when spread out over stretches of time. Exercise, fresh air, healthy food and lots of sleep are crucial. Also worth mentioning that a little light socialising won't hurt. Seeing a friend for a walk round the park or rewarding a week or hard revising with a meal out or cinema trip seems reasonable to us.
8. Help keep perspective
Most important of all, help your child to keep everything in perspective. Remind them that the better they prepare and the more confident they feel in their subject knowledge the less stressed they will feel when the exams start. But by the end of June the exams will be over and it will be the start of the long summer holidays. Exams can usually be retaken and there is never only one single route to your child's desired career.
If you think your child might benefit from tuition during the run-up to exams, have a look at The Good Schools Guide's pages on tutors.
