28

...and finally Good Luck from all at QEHS!

Supporting your child through

GCSE and beyond.

A parents’ guide.

...or how to avoid this

2

Background Study of any subject at GCSE can be difficult. There

is no such thing as an ‘easy’ subject as the easiness

depends to some extent on each student.

It can be quite daunting for a student who

feels they are struggling in a particular subject when

they see their peers apparently understanding it

with ease. It is probably that those very students

find other subjects more challenging but the impact

of feeling that you are not as good as others can be

difficult for students and that lack of confidence can

lead to continued poor performance. As teachers

we know that confidence can be a significant factor

in the success or not of an individual student.

We also have a range of abilities at QEHS and

whilst all students are, by definition, in the top 25%

of their age range, by Year 9 students have forgot-

ten this. This can lead to them feeling that because

they are not the top of the class they must be weak

at a particular subject. We know that this isn’t true,

they are in fact simply at the lower end of the top

25%, but these feelings can again lead to a lack of

confidence.

Finally, GCSEs are hard anyway, particular if a

student is looking to access the highest grades. If it

was easy to get an A/A* or 9/8 then everybody

would have one and they would have no value.

Therefore even the best students have to work to

achieve these highest grades.

So all of this means that we need to work to-

gether to ensure all students can achieve their po-

tential at GCSE whilst not getting too stressed and

anxious in the process.

Every student at QEHS should be able to

achieve a ‘good’ pass in every GCSE they are en-

tered for. This doesn’t mean every student should

achieve a string of top grades but they should all

achieve at least a C and probably at least a B grade

or equivalent in all subjects.

In order to achieve this there are a range of

skills and habits that the student must demonstrate

throughout GCSE study. Some students pick these

up naturally, others need guidance and others need

to be shown repeatedly how they should approach

their studies.

This booklet is designed to help parents sup-

port students at home. It aims to provide guidance

around work required outside the classroom, effec-

tive environments for students and some exam

preparation techniques. It also looks at supporting

the emotional side of GCSE study as most students

are passing through adolescence at the same time as

studying GCSEs!

It contains some background theory as well as

practical advice.

27

Relevant exam board websites

AQA: www.aqa.org.uk

OCR: www.ocr.org.uk

Edexcel: https://www.edexcel.com

CiE: www.cie.org.uk

26

Exam Boards and relevant codes

Subject Level Exam Board Subject Code

Art & Design GCSE AQA 4200

Business & communications GCSE AQA 4134

IFS certificate in Personal Finance Level 2 [Equivalent to

GCSE]

AQA 4130

Business Studies GCSE OCR J253

D&T Electronics GCSE edexcel 2EP01

D& T Graphic Products GCSE edexcel 2GR01

D&T Resistant Materials GCSE Edexcel 2RM01

Drama GCSE edexcel 1DR0

English Language GCSE AQA 8700

English Literature GCSE AQA 8702

French GCSE AQA 8658

Geography GCSE AQA 8035

German GCSE AQA 8668

History GCSE AQA 8145

Food preparation & nutrition GCSE AQA 8585

Maths GCSE AQA 8300

Music GCSE edexcel 2MU01

PE GCSE AQA 8582

RS GCSE AQA 8062

Science Biology [top sets on both sides

of the year group]

GCSE AQA

8461

Science Chemistry [top sets on both

sides of the year group]

GCSE AQA 8462

Science Physics [top sets on both sides

of the year group]

GCSE AQA 8463

Science [set 4] GCSE AQA 8464

Sociology GCSE AQA 4190

Sociology AS AQA 1191

Spanish GCSE AQA 8698

Exam codes were correct at the time of going to press.

3

Some theories around learning and intelligence

which you may find interesting

Section 1

4

What is intelligence?

Some background ideas & guidance

25

For subject specific advice

encourage your youngsters to talk to

their individual teachers.

24

Using the internet

Useful addresses

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize - lots of information and activities

www.samlearning.com - you’ll need the school log in details

www.mymaths.co.uk - you’ll need the school log in details [see maths page]

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/studentlife - school work support site. You can talk

to others about revision topics and contact teachers to answer your questions within

24 hours

www.gcse.com

www.s-cool.co.uk

www.examzone.co.uk - this site is run by Edexcel it includes model answers,

mark schemes and revision notes

www.revisionaid.co.uk - an access site to other subject specific materials

Apps

There are many ‘Apps’ available for smart phones which will help with revision:

below is the sort of thing you might find for revising French.

5

Intelligence This is a much debated word. The definition used here is ‘the density and richness of neuronal connections

made in response to stimulation’. In this sense babies become more intelligent as they learn to make more

and more sense of the world. Sadly, exactly the reverse happens with senility where old people become

more and more child-like.

Development What happens after conception makes a major difference to later intelligence. Recent discoveries sug-

gest the environment in the womb makes a huge difference. When born, a baby’s brain is ready for ac-

tion, and is designed to make the best of whatever stimulation comes its way. Unfortunately, some

homes provide too little stimulation and this retards development. The difference is painfully visible by

Year 1 of school. For various reasons, TV and other technical distractions are NOT adequate stimula-

tion. The best stimulation is the interested involvement of other humans, particularly of the parents.

The genetic design of the brain is such that most of the important developments have taken place before

a child reaches school. A school can polish up, sometimes well and sometimes less well, what material

they receive, but a school can make little fundamental difference to what has already happened. For ex-

ample, a key part of the intelligence required by successful adults is social skills. If a child has poor social

skills aged 4 then it is very difficult to repair the damage and prevent the inevitable slide into a failed

adulthood.

Adolescence Recent scientific discoveries increasingly point to the idea that the brain is fundamentally re-wired during

adolescence. The brain has to undergo some major changes to become the brain of an adult rather than the brain of a child. Unfortunately, during this process some mental functions become weakened

until the new capacity has been re-built. It is a bit like saying the bathroom is bound to function less ef-

fectively during its re-fitting.

The functions that are most obviously diminished are those to do with decision-making, with reading the

intentions of other people, and with the evaluation of risk. This means teenagers easily misinterpret

what adults say to them, and then make poor decisions often involving risky behaviour.

Further reading : Brainstorm The power and purpose of the teenage brain; Daniel J Siegel

6

How remembering happens:

A guide to some aspects of the brain.

23

General revision strategies The following 21 ideas can be used for turning class notes into revision notes across all

subject areas.

1. Brainstorm a topic using a spider diagram

2. Make a chart to fit the information

3. Put key words on post-it-notes, stick them around the house to learn them

4. Make up tests to try later

5. Put notes on revision cards

6. Make your own flash cards, questions one side/answers the other

7. Organise a topic using a mind-map

8. Use different colours to represent different things

9. Use Mnemonics for difficult spellings/sequences

10. Make a flow chart

11. Make a timeline

12. Use pictures to represent key ideas

13. List two sides of an argument

14. Identify difference and similarities

15. Plan an exam answer and write the first paragraph

16. Create a dictionary for each subject

17. Turn headings into questions

18. Fill your bedroom walls posters for key ideas/concepts

19. Make up cartoons

20. Label pictures

21. Record quotations/foreign language vocab

22

Example of a revision timetable for a

non-school day during study leave

Time Morning Afternoon Evening

30 mins

30 mins

30 mins

30 mins

English

Of Mice & Men

Lennie’s

character

Science

Biology

Respiration

French

Holiday

vocabulary

History

Causes of WWI

Maths

Quadratic

equations

Business

Studies

marketing

RE

The existence of

God

Netball

practice

Football practice

French

Irregular verbs

Review slot

Review slot

7

The Brain

The brain is a complex and wonderfully powerful organ which is only recently being understood. There is

plenty that is not understood, and so this article can only be a general guide.

Co-ordinated Structures

There is no one bit of the brain that does all the remembering. There are three co-ordinated structures,

and all three must work properly in co-ordination if remembering is to work effectively.

We should note that the brain is very good at forgetting. This is because every day the brain receives

vast amounts of information, only some of which needs to be remembered. The brain would quickly fill

up and stop working properly of we remembered everything. So, the brain will discard information unless

we give it a specific reason to keep the information. Everything we notice is registered in short-term (or

‘working’) memory. The trick is to get things into long-term memory, and then to get it back out again

when we want it.

The Hippocampus

This bit of the brain is where the remembered information is actually stored. It is a bit like the files you

put your documents in.

The Cortex

The cortex is the planning, organising and thinking bit of the brain. This is the part that decides where

and how things are remembered. It is a bit like the decisions you make to organise your files in a particu-

lar way, and the decisions you make to put particular pieces of paper into particular files. For example,

an event could be filed away as ‘a thing that happened on a sunny day’ or ‘a thing that happened to my sis-

ter’ or ‘a thing to do with insects’ or ‘a thing that happened away from home’ or many other things, when

the ‘thing’ we are talking about is the same interruption of a family picnic by an invasion of ants.

The brain is extra-ordinarily good (certainly by comparison with computers) at cross-referencing things

under different headings. But, if you file something away as ‘a thing needed in Maths lessons’ you will find

it difficult to call up in, say, a Geography lesson. It works by association i.e. what links we make between

one idea and other ideas.

8

The Amygdala

This is the unusual bit. We often talk as if learning is a

calm rational process where emotion simply gets in

the way. It is true that violent emotion makes clear

thinking very difficult. However, thinking only hap-

pens with emotion. Emotion is a way of ‘tagging’ or

‘labelling’ memories, particularly with regard to how

important they are.

This whole area is still not well-understood. Howev-

er, if the teacher plans a particularly exciting or unusu-

al lesson then the pupils are more likely to remember

it (note ‘more likely’ - nothing is perfect!). Similarly,

the pupil can exercise some degree of control over the emotions which are laid down with the memories

that are laid down. If, loosely speaking, the pupil

makes some effort to attach importance to what is

being learned, then it will be remembered more easily.

Summary

There is a large, and growing, body of knowledge

about memory. This is only a very broad and neces-

sarily simple guide. What is important is to realise

that remembering doesn’t happen by accident. Re-

membering happens in particular ways because we

have evolved in particular ways. Understanding these

ways helps to make remembering more successful.

Perhaps most importantly of all, the remembering sys-

tem discussed in here has an intentional component.

That is to say, a pupil can affect what and how much is

remembered by intending to remember certain things,

and by attaching an emotional tag showing it is im-

portant.

The reverse of this is to point out that forgetting is

intentional also. Pupils forget things because they

choose to regard some things as worth remembering

and others as not worth remembering. If you attach

£20 to quite a difficult piece of remembering (a poem,

say) then it is astonishing what pupils can remember!!

Perhaps there are better alternatives than £20 for you

and us to consider such as amazing opportunities and

life-choices?

21

Planning revision

Think levels

Level one is the subject

Level two is the topics within that subject

Level three is the individual topic divided into study units

subject

Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic

Study units

1

2

3

4

5

Study units

1

2

3

4

5

Study units

1

2

3

4

5

Study units

1

2

3

4

5

Study units

1

2

3

4

5

20

Revision timetables

Encourage your youngsters to consider the following

Be realistic—sessions should only be 20—25 minutes long with 10 minute breaks

Start ASAP

Consider when you learn best [are you a morning person? Or prefer to work late

into the night?]

2 sessions on a week night [or whenever is best for you]

3-4 sessions per day at the weekend

During holidays/study leave, revision should be far more intensive

Build in treats [social time is vital but there must be a balance between work & play]

Try and do a variety of subjects across each day

Build in slots to review the learning of the day

When you write the timetable for next week remember to build in review slots for

the work covered the previous week

Discuss with somebody at home how you are going to do your revision

Break each subject into key areas [eg Algebra, irregular verbs, ask you teachers for a

list of topics]

Identify which topics you are weak in - the danger is you will focus on the areas you

already know.

Prioritise your workload [revision takes time and for a few months your social life

has to give a bit. [why don’t you arrange with friends to have a ‘time off’ session to-

gether?]

Make full use of any revision sessions the school provides [build them into your time-

table]

Consider asking for a learning mentor who can challenge you and help you keep

check on the work you are doing, build times to meet into your timetable.

9

How to remember things:

Some background ideas & guidance

10

Forgetting: System Overload

The brain easily gets filled up by the million and one things that come our way every day. So the brain

is very good at discarding information that doesn’t appear to have any use. Most information ends up

discarded unless we give the brain a reason to remember it.

Intent

So the first key thing is to approach any piece of learning with a conscious intention to learn and re-

member. Anyone who arrives at a lesson without this determination will learn and remember very lit-

tle. Unfortunately, many teenagers arrive at lessons in precisely this state because they have more

pressing matters on their mind. If you ask students what they have learned, they can tell you what they

did in the lesson (‘sat about and took notes’) but not what they learned.

File

The bigger problem, however, is finding information once we’ve learned it. The common phenomenon

of something ‘being on the tip of my tongue’ is exactly this. We haven’t forgotten whatever it is, but

we can’t find it just at that moment when we need it (such as in an exam).

There are many memory techniques that work along these lines. Professional memory masters

have well-known tricks, such as imagining a street and placing items along the street. Memory works

by association, and associating an item with a mental street (or house) makes things easy to find i.e. to

remember.

The question is to decide what is associated with what. The names of the capital cities of Asia

could be associated with, or filed away under, various categories such as ‘things I need to know for my

geography exam’, ‘things that I learned on Tuesday afternoon, ‘things I am interested in’, ‘things that will

get me a merit’, and many others. It is important to have a picture of the overall structure of the sub-

ject,, such as a copy of the syllabus, so that things can be filed away where they belong and where there

is a reasonable chance of their being remembered.

I

F

R

INTENT

Really mean to learn and remember the information.

FILE

Think carefully where you want to store the memory i.e. with

what other things does it go?

REHEARSE

Keep practising at pulling the information out of long-term

memory and putting it back again – little and often.

19

Getting started Before they start revising, it is worth making sure they have everything they need at their

fingertips. This will stop them wasting valuable time trying to find things.

Equipment

Highlighters

Coloured pens

Post-it-notes for formula/key words

Different coloured papers [for your different subjects] they’ll need lots of this

MP3 player / phone

Where should you revise?

Not in front of the TV

At a table preferably in a quiet place

With a study group, either at school or a home

At the local library

What else could be of use when revising?

A revision timetable

An up to date set of class notes

Any revision guides provided by departments

Revision lists [topics, areas etc.]

Lists of exactly is in each exam [check out exam board information]

Any study guides either on loan from the library or bought [but check the guide

covers the course they are studying].

18

Good techniques for each learning style

People who work well with images

Writing down key facts

Using mind maps

Creating pictures and diagrams

Using timelines

Using pictures, diagrams and charts

Watching videos, films, TV programmes

People who work well with sound

Hearing a presentation Using Mnemonics

Reading aloud to yourself May work well to music

Making a recording of key points Use computer software

Verbally summarising

Explaining it to somebody else

Talking to yourself

People who like to be more active

Using highlighters to select key words, and main ideas

Making index cards

Sorting cards into an order

Making models

Mind Maps

Acting out key themes

11

It helps also if a student’s notes and other work is organised and well-structured, because the location

of things on paper supports the remembering of things in the mind.

Rehearsal

The brain works on a principle sometimes described as ‘use it or lose it’. There are never enough

neural pathways to go round. So the brain is adept at re-cycling those that appear to be unused.

Then whatever it was really is forgotten.

Rehearsal is the technical word for what we might more readily recognise as ‘practise’. The more of-

ten we mentally travel down the neural path to a memory and bring it back along that path to con-

scious use, the more deeply etched that pathway becomes, and the more likely it is we can remember

when we want to. It’s a bit like ‘keep off the grass’; one or two journeys across the lawn leave almost

no trace, and that trace quickly vanishes. However, a regular and frequent journey soon creates a

broad and permanent path.

Students generally travel these paths rarely, particularly if they are not interested in what they learn.

Students are most likely to travel these pathways as revision when there is a test, or an exam. This is

clearly a good idea, but it is not the best idea. In theory, no revision should be necessary because stu-

dents have learned their lessons properly in the first place. The to-ings and fro-ings of the ideas dur-

ing lesson time are always limited in time, and this limits the amount that can be reliably learned only

using planned lesson time.

Students must add to this total amount of time to make a serious difference. Home-work is a way by

which teachers plan to add to this total time, or number of journeys, and students are forced to do it.

A far better system is when students choose to revisit their learning. Little and often is the best way,

and sometimes only a few minutes can be enough (it depends on what one is trying to learn). It is the

brain that needs to be active, in thinking about the learning, and actual ‘work’ is not always required.

Very successful students do this often and naturally, because they are interested.

Talking is an excellent way to increase the journeys along the neural pathways, and the more often

students talk about their learning the better. Modern technology can help. There are many audio and

video recordings relevant to a topic, and these can be downloaded from the internet onto a student’s

phone. Then otherwise ‘lost’ time, such as when walking to school, can be made good use of. Stu-

dents can also record their own talk, either by themselves or with a friend, and put that on their

phone.

12

Revision techniques:

Some background ideas & guidance

17

Some tips to help your youngster develop their memory.

1. Encourage them to take lots of breaks.

Most people can only concentrate, understand and remember for between 20-25 minutes at a

time. (A rule of thumb is your age plus 5 minutes but this depends on the individual)

It is important they do not revise for longer without a break

If they do, most of what they do they will not remember. However, the 20-25 have to be intense

and absolutely focused.

Once they have finished learning something, the brain actually increases its power and carries on

remembering. It will be sorting out what it has been learning, creating a more complete picture of

everything it has just learnt. Only then does the rapid decline in memory begin and as much as 80%

of what is learnt in a day can be forgotten almost immediately.

2. But they can stop this.

To maximise their learning, they need to revise and revisit what they have learnt in the following

way:

After 10 minutes,

At the end of the day,

At the end of the week,

At the end of the month,

The week before the exam.

Revising is all about MEMORY. The memory is like a muscle. If

it is not exercised it will grow weaker and weaker, but if it is

exercised , it will get stronger and stronger.

16

Practical ideas around revision and learning

Section 2

13

BACKGROUND TO REVISION

Revision is a ‘catch-all’ phrase which refers to the process of preparing for a test or an examination. Each

individual person develops their own methodologies for revising and this is on the whole a trial and er-

ror process. However, through gaining an understanding of themselves as learners, students can direct

that trial and error process to speed it up and find the most appropriate ways for them to revise.

Whichever system people use, they should aim to follow a general pattern to their preparations.

As hinted at above, revision is just one part of preparing for an exam or test.

Preparing the ground:

Ensure that you know precisely what the test or exam is testing. If appropriate have a specification or list

of learning objectives for the topic or course you have been studying. Collect together your notes and

any text books that you have been using in the course. Set out your desk and work area ready for work.

You don’t want the process to be interrupted by having to look for information.

Making notes:

Turn your notes into another form from what they are now. This is crucial as you must actively engage

with the material rather than passively reading for example. There is further guidance elsewhere in this

booklet on how you could make notes. The information needs ‘reframing’ in some way. As a rule of

thumb you should try to reduce your course notes to a third, or even a fifth, of what they are from class.

This will make you decide what is important.

Revising:

This is actually learning the material, from your notes. Again methodologies are given elsewhere in this

booklet.

Practising:

This is a crucial part of the process and should take about a third of your time. You need to test your

understanding on real questions. Practise makes perfect.

14

MORE DETAILED GUIDANCE

Preparing the ground

There are many sources of information of learning objectives. Most of your subjects will provide you

with these, especially in Years 7,8 & 9.

Exam board websites are an excellent resource although of course you will have to check which specifi-

cation you are following.

www.ocr.org.uk

www.aqa.org.uk

www.edexcel.com

The process of sorting out your notes and text book will help to ensure that you are not distracted by

material which is not useful to you. Try to separate out worksheets from information sheets as well, the

latter being more useful of course.

Organise the material on your desk or in your work space. This is especially important when preparing

for an examination series as you will need to look at material the night before each exam possible and

don’t want to waste time searching for your notes etc.

15

Making notes

‘Notes’ is used in a very general way here as they can take the form of audio, mind-maps, series of post-it

notes, all sorts of things.

Revising

Getting the information into your head is the crucial part of the process. You need to be able to sit in a

silent exam room and recall facts and ideas. You should therefore replicate this experience whilst revis-

ing. You should sit at a desk in as near silence as possible.

The key messages for any successful revision strategy are you should be actively doing something with the

information and it must build in repetition. Therefore, writing out the same mind-map 10 times on the

same set of facts is a good thing.

Practice

This is crucial. You could read about how to play the piano but without actually doing it you would be no

good. Therefore you need to get hold of past papers (websites of exam boards again) and actually do the

questions, under exam conditions. Try old worksheets you have been given and to which you have the

answers. Spend about a third of your time for preparation on this stage.

SUMMARY THOUGHTS

There is a model of knowledge that says that people;

Start off unconsciously incompetent; i.e. They don’t know how bad they are

Move onto being consciously incompetent; i.e. They realise how bad they are

Then move to consciously competent; i.e. They can now do things but have to think about it

Finally become unconsciously competent; i.e. Things come naturally to them.

By the end of your preparation you need to be at least the third category and preferably the last.