Teacher (and mum) Louise Farnell offers advice on how to support your teenager through the tough weeks of revision and exams.
While the rest of us as enjoying spring weather and looking forward to summer, teenagers are faced with the grim but important drudge of exam time.
We want to support our kids at times like this, but it’s sometimes hard to know what’s best. Here Louise Farnell offers some useful advice. She is an assistant headteacher at a mixed comprehensive school for children aged 11 to 16 in County Durham and she has two daughters of her own. You’ll also find more useful advice from Louise in 10 exam-time tips for parents and Preparing for the exam years ahead.
Is there any official advice for parents on how to support their child through exams?
There’s no one official set of advice, although some schools provide guidelines for the parents (it’s worth asking if your child’s school does this). Alternatively, there are some good online sources of advice. Web-based revision includes: GCSE Bitesize (BBC), and SAM Learning (this is something your child can access with their school user name and a log-in is needed). These sites are both good because they have interactive content rather than the passive experience of just reading through screen pages. But don’t forget spending time online can also easily lead to distraction – email, MSN, Facebook updates and online games.
Are there key basics in how teenagers should approach their work – not doing too much in one sitting, structuring their time and so on?
• Sleep is important. Don’t be afraid to take the mobile and computer – teenagers will continue into the early hours using text, MSN, etc. if you let them. In fact, messages passed can cause anxiety before an exam – what someone else thinks they should have revised, or what someone has said about them!
• A bedtime routine is important for good sleep. Make sure your child has a break from revision before bedtime – a warm drink, shower or bath, some relaxing downtime.
• Get your child to prepare equipment – bag, clothes etc. – for the next day before they go to bed, rather than sorting it in a rush in the morning and leaving for school or college in the wrong frame of mind.
• Structure revision. Twenty-minute activities, note taking, writing down questions to ask later, mind-maps etc. But encourage your child to keep these revision sessions active and not just about passively reading.
• Incentivise revision. E.g. three lots of 20 minutes – then drink, TV programme. (Watch the England game!)
Should we take an interest in what our kids need to do, or does this put more pressure on them?
Taking an interest is really important. One of the biggest influences on a child’s success is the parent(s) – particularly the value and interest they show in their child’s education and achievement. Achievement is related directly to what each child is capable of achieving; all students should have their own academic targets, know what they are and be told if they are meeting them. Parents should be aware of these from their child's reports – if not then they should contact the school.
Both parent and child should know what they are aiming for so that both have a realistic picture of potential outcomes. That is, parents shouldn’t necessarily be expecting all A* grades from their child whose targets are Cs and Bs – celebrate achievement of targets rather than asking why they haven’t got an A-grade if it’s just not them! That’s when the pressure from expectations is wrong!
Supersavvy tip: A child's attendance has a direct correlation to their end achievement – there is research to back this up. So do your best to make sure your child is at school throughout the academic year.