End of Year 7 exams - advice, tips and sanity savers please!

[CeliaFate]

Dd has exams in 3 weeks. The results will determine if she goes into set 1 or set 2. She's an average student, who underachieves due to a lack of care and attention in her work.
I'm using the BBC Bitesize website to help her revise, we're doing 30 minute chunks of revision then I test her at the end, but she can't seem to retain information. She spent 30 minutes revising MRSGREN for Biology (the 7 things all living things need) then when I tested her, she wrote excretion was use of energy.

How can I get her to revise more efficiently?

I know this doesn't answer your Q, am just being nosy. But What is the difference between Set1 + Set2? Don't the results/abilities profiles overlap?

To be honest, anecdotally it seems a crude way of separating the wheat from the chaff.

So you'll have the behavioural issues or lower ability or sen kids in set 2, while the brighter, more academic kids are in set 1. That's the theory anyway.
In practice, I don't really know how it works!

I'm not sure there's an easy answer. In the example you give, I don't think the issue is so much retention of information as not really understanding something. In science she needs both.

To start with, I reckon 30 minutes (at a time) is too long for most in year 7. I would go for twenty minutes max.

Plus watch the way you are with her. If you are stressing that she needs to get into set 1 it will rub off on her and - if it were me - that would stop me from learning during revision because I'd be too stressed!

And silly mistakes are natural. Give her time at the end of every test to re look over all her answers. It's a very good habit to get in to!

Not everyone can retain information in the same way- has she tried creating mind maps?

Mind maps are a good idea, as does the 20 minute chunks.
School advises doing 2 hours of revision a night though.

I don't mind if she gets into set 2 because of her ability. I just want her to show a good attitude and effort - she's quite happy to coast and drift along, but she's capable of a lot more.

as are the 20 minute chunks.

School advises doing 2 hours of revision a night though.
really - from 3 weeks out in yr7? Sounds too much to me. (I've a DD yr8 at a GS and I'm sure they didn't expect that much)

I know, I thought it was a lot too. That's what they've sent home in a letter, along with certain tips like bite size chunks etc.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but if she is having that much difficulty she may be better off in set 2. To coach her extensively so she ends up in set one may mean she is out of her depth next year, and and up doing worse in the end.

I think you should step back and let DD revise for herself. If she does not get MRSGREN after teaching and intensive revision, she doesn't belong in the top set.

Agree with MNistoo and ClaireAll.

If the idea of separating them into sets is to put them in the set where they should be, then surely inflating her grades through intensive prep is going to be counter productive?

Also is there movement after setting if she goes into the "wrong" set?

I agree with the last 3 posts. the point of setting is that they are taught with others who are working at roughly the same level as themselves. If it's that much of a struggle to get into the higher set, then perhaps that's not the set she should be in. Yr7s often need a bit of guidance and support to learn how to do revision, but what you are suggesting seems like too much to me (I have a Yr11 and a Yr8)

I take your point about the reason for setting. I'm surprised you think 'm doing too much. She revises then I test her but how effective her revision techniques are is questionable.

I think your dd's school is making too much of a big deal about it tbh. When ds was at the end of yr 7 he did zero revision for end of year tests, so he was set appropriately (can't remember the details, but top for science, medium for maths, etc) and there was just no drama whatsoever.

It seems weird to me that there are only two sets in the whole year; in ds's grammar school in yr 8 they were only set for the core subjects and stuck in their tutor groups for humanities etc till the end of yr9

If you are revising 2 hours a night 3 weeks before Y7 exams then chances are DD will get fed up with it well before she needs to revise for GCSEs. Is this on top of homework?

No this is instead of homework. I do worry she'll get fed up because she's not

a natural hard worker! If it comes easy to her and she enjoys it then she'll

happily put time and effort into it, but if not then it's like pulling teeth.

I do think she needs to be taught revision techniques - I think she's going into

her room, setting the timer for 30 minutes and probably doing 10 minutes r

revision.

Hard to do 2 hrs a night of revision on topics that don't interest you and maybe you don't understand anyway - unless you care about the end result. Does your dd mind being in set 2? Are her friends likely to be? If it was me and I didn't care about sets and wasn't interested in the topics i wouldn't bother either.

Can you make it interesting for her? Pick a topic or subject you know she loves and get her to put some effort into that? Science might just not be her thing (my sympathies here...).

Do you know what she's doing - is she just reading stuff? One thing that can be really helpful - its what I used to do, and what it turns out my DD was doing unprompted by me before her yr8 exams last week - is to write out notes. Even if its more or less copying out what's in the book - it adds an extra layer of mental processing. Ideally you try to concentrate on the most salient points - DH's method involved writing key points on index cards. We were both very good at exams when we were young enough to remember stuff.

I agree that set 2 might be better but learning good revision skills will always be helpful.

The most important thing when revising is to 'do' something and not just read stuff. What works as ''doing'' though will differ from person to person. The best thing to do is try different things until she finds what works for her. So some ideas for doing are...

• read through and make notes on paper. If you want you can revisit these notes again a second time and condense them more and repeat until they fit onto a revision card. Leave a day or town in between each read though to maximise retention
• mind maps/ brainstorms
• summarise info in a table
• use revision cards to write her your own questions on and answers on the back and then use these to revise / test yourself on
• record yourself explaining stuff as a podcast an listen to this note bus on the way to school
• video yourself teaching the topic
• draw cartoons/pictures to summarise things
• do some questions from a text book or online website
• revise with a friend, each prepare a topic then teach the other
• use tables or lists or bullet points
• Make up your own mnemonics for remembering things
• write important things and stick them around the house (the ones you'll learn first will e the ones in the toilet!
• make t into the 'just a minute game' eg talk for a minute on a topc without hesitation or repititon.

I'm sure there are some obvious ones I've missed off but some there hopefully to try. As I say find what works for your DD! Oh yes and make sure breaks are added in!

Thanks, those tips are helpful. I think she stares at the book for 30 minutes, then calls it revision. Just like when I used to draw up elaborate revision timetables, colour coded and neatly drawn. Then I'd have a break because I thought I'd done some work .