Recommendations for tuition on exam technique

[Thepeopleversuswork]

Looking for some advice: my DD is 15 and generally doing well at school but doesn't tend to do well with exams. Her grades are good to excellent during run of the mill work, homework and coursework but drop several points at end of year exams. She needs to get to grips with it ahead of GCSEs.

I think the issue isn't specific to subjects but is more related to exam and revision technique.

Wondering if others have experience of this and if there are tutors who can support specifically with revision and exam technique across the board, as opposed to on a by subject basis?

Hi Op, one thing I’ve noticed with children I tutor in English and humanities subjects is that many of them struggle with how to approach essay questions. A key recommendation would be for your daughter to have a clear essay framework that she can apply across different subjects. I use the PEEL method. This won’t be applicable for subjects like Maths.

I would also recommend practising exam questions from previous papers. This helps students become familiar with the style of questions they are likely to encounter in exams. It may also be helpful for your daughter to ask her teachers roughly how much time she should spend on each question, as effective time management is an important exam skill.

@FreudvsJung Thank you. Her teachers are fairly hot on essay structure, which she understands in principle but she seems to struggle to apply in an exam setting. But a good prompt.

I'd pick one humanity and one science and get a tutor for each, and then your DC can apply techniques for those subjects across the others.

This sounds very familiar. Quite a few bright children understand the material perfectly well but struggle to demonstrate it under exam conditions.
If her classwork and coursework are consistently strong across subjects, it does suggest the issue may be exam technique, revision strategies or simply the pressure of timed exams rather than gaps in knowledge.
You can definitely find study skills or exam skills tutors who work across subjects, focusing on things like revision planning, memory techniques, time management, answering exam questions and coping with exam anxiety. Some schools also run study skills workshops for GCSE students.
It might also be worth trying to work out exactly what's happening in the exams. Is she running out of time, forgetting things she knows, struggling to revise effectively, or becoming anxious? The answer could help determine what sort of support would be most useful.
15, there's still plenty of time before GCSEs to develop those skills, and the fact that she's performing well throughout the year suggests she already has the knowledge and ability.

My son has found using online study resources such as the smart mark feature in Save my Exams and Medly has helped him with exam technique as it gives you practice questions and marks it against the exam board spec giving tips on improvement areas

Thank you all. Appreciate it!