If you’re watching this year’s students heading into their exams in their leavers’ hoodies, GCSEs and National 5s may still feel a long way off for your teenager. But they really aren’t and in the blink of an eye, it will be your child with their exam timetable ahead of them, and all the stress and hard work of this all-important time of year.
Next year’s GCSE and National 5 students have had a very difficult time and are part of the cohort of students who have been most affected by the school closures of the pandemic. They experienced almost two years of major disruption to their education right at a critical time for them and many have continued to miss large chunks of schooling due to illness. 15 is also an age where some children can start to lose focus as going out with their mates and mucking about seems much more compelling than knuckling down to homework.
So what can you do to help?
Rather than wait for the end term reports or worse still, until next term, now is the time to put an action plan in place to help your child be in the best possible position to fulfil their true potential in their exams. Here’s some ideas of how to help.
Don’t leave it too late
This is the single most important piece of advice we can give. It may be a bit early for revision, but it is not too early to start preparing. A good place to start is to scrutinise any recent assessments and speak to the teachers concerned. There will almost inevitably be areas where your child has a gap or weakness in their learning due to the pandemic. This could be anything from an entire area in the curriculum for a particular subject (oh, gosh, we missed that bit because we had Covid) or it could be something more fundamental like the basics of good grammar, clear handwriting and the principles of basic mathematics.
Check there aren’t any underlying problems
As work gets harder in secondary school, some children start to struggle. This can be because they have an underlying problem such as dyslexia that up until now, they have managed. If you have any concerns about this, speak to the person in charge of Special Educational Needs or your child’s teacher / tutor.
Identify who can help
Some schools offer intervention or other help although some children may be reluctant to go along to this. Private tuition is an option but can be pricey or there is workshop style tuition like ours which is much more affordable. Ideally you want someone who provides tuition in line with the curriculum but who will also help with those core skills in English, maths and reasoning, because they underlie everything else. You also want tuition that is tailored to your child’s specific needs and will help boost their confidence as well as improve their skills.
Enrol on a summer programme
The summer holidays are often seen as a time when learning is lost. But actually, by taking advantage of the summer holiday, you have a chance to help your child catch up with any lost learning, build on the skills they do have and build their confidence as they approach that all-important final year.
Our summer programmes don’t eat too much into your family’s much needed holiday time because we know that’s important, but they do take the pressure off you. In addition to the tailored programmes we offer, our workshops are designed to instil excellent study habits and help students learn how to use their knowledge in the best way. This not only sets them up well for the start of the new academic year but will help them with all the revision and study that lies ahead of them.
If you’d like to know more about the tuition workshops in your area, or if you’d like to enrol your child, please get in touch.
