Tassomai revision programme - any good?

[228agreenend]

This programme was mentioned on the GCSE thread. Can anyone who has used in the past, or are currently using it, recommend it? Or suggest good alternatives?

Thanks.

Yes - for DD's GCSE Science revision. The school signed up the whole year group in fact - but DD1 was already subscribed. Various friends' children have used it - and say it helped get grades up from C in mocks to A in the real thing!

I'm about to purchase it later today......

I'm another parent of a child where the school signed up the whole year for science. I was sceptical about what DS would learn from the format but it is working for him, two of his classmates hated it and ditched it as soon as they could.

We signed DS up to Tassomai as he was struggling with Physics and Chemistry and his school appear to have a problem holding on to Science teachers.
It's good - as long as they keep up to the programme and work on it daily.

We started this last summer in advance of GCSEs this year. DC was pretty conscientious at 10-20 minutes per day, but in the end became stressed because no matter how much work was done, which we felt was quite a lot, the finish line always seemed to be unreachable. We stopped a couple of months ahead of the exams when DC was still way below the arbitrary finish line. It became a stressful thing which didn't seem to be helping. DC switched to a free online utility that they loved and found a lot more helpful. Could have saved a lot of money had we found it earlier!

Pros:
The questions are tailored to the specific syllabus they are doing.
It's active learning; more effective than reading a revision guide.
It's also tailored to the student, so questions they get wrong will reappear later until they get them right.
It tracks progress, so they can see how much they need to do.
It encourages them to revise little and often, which has been shown to be effective.
It can motivate students who otherwise wouldn't know where to start with their revision.

Cons:
The questions in the exam will include other formats apart from multiple choice, so the student will need to practise past papers in addition to Tassomai.
Perhaps because DS1 started very late (6 weeks before exams) the progress required to stay on track seems to increase exponentially. To start with, he needed to do half an hour a day and easily stayed on track. By the last week, in order to stay on track, he would have had to spend most of his waking hours on it.

Outcome:

DS1 completed 50% of the Chemistry course (took about 30 hours) and 50% of the Biology course (also about 30 hours). His grades were B in Biology and C in Chemistry. I think that doing Tassomai probably boosted him by one grade in each subject, and if he had spent a further 60 hours and completed 100% of both courses, he possibly could have got A in Biology and C in Chemistry.

PS Did you get the PM I sent you asking about grade boundaries?

I realise this thread is old enough that the OP's child has finished their GCSEs, but I have given feedback in case others search for info in the future.

Ds2 started at Easter .Chemistry only. D in his mock. Probably did about 50% got a B in the real thing. Most importantly it improved his confidence. Prior to tassomai he was saying there was no point in revising chemistry as he was hopeless at it and going to fail

We used it for my son's Year 10 science exams. He worked for about 6 weeks. Improved his grades from D to C.
Going to start the full course in September for GCSE.

DS did all three sciences from about Xmas on.Got A* Chemistry and Biology and A in Physics from mocks of A,A,B in February. Pluses; he found it useful to sit down and do for half an hour or so as a change from past papers and you get to see your progress in real time. Negative;I think it doesnt lend itself to helping you with the longer 3-6-8 mark questions which is what he found/finds more challenging. He came out of most papers saying that he had "Tassomai" moments when he got an answer he was struggling for. Support team are brilliant. Does what it says, dont start too early, dont start too late, worth every penny.

I've been asked what the free alternative was my DC chose to switch to, it's called memrise, you can find it at memrise.com. Their tagline is 'learning made joyful' and for some reason my DC really did love it!

Second; the exponential growth in work was something DS had too, despite starting way earlier. Realistically it's always going to be the case that some days/weeks are busier than others and when Tassomai time slipped the red line seemed never ending. I got worried it was becoming a demotivator and got in touch with the support team who were great at resetting it to a more acheivable level and making sure the modules still got covered..

My DC too got the Tassomai progress markers adjusted due to the stress that despite the consistent time put in from an early start, the progress indicator barely seemed to move, and was clearly never going to actually reach the end.

For us, although the feedback from Tassomai changed to be less discouraging, % progress through the course remained the same. I think this may protect them for their guarantee of an A or your money back for science subjects (if you complete the course).

Does anyone have a DC that managed to complete the course, and if so, how much time did that take?

fuchsia; I see where you're coming from. DS "completed" only a minority of the modules when I just checked, but had done at least 80-90% of most if that helps. Interestingly it was physics he did the least % in and "only" got an A, partly I think because he thought he had it nailed and put in less effort.. !Wouldnt have dreamed of asking for my money back as it's only a small element of what DS was doing. I guess it's horses for courses, it worked for us and am planning to get DDs to do the same when their turn comes ( unless the free site mentioned above passes muster).I do love MN for this shared experience!

dd started it after doing her p1,b1 and c1 exams. for p2, p3 etc. So she clearly crammed it all in in just a week or two. (can't remember exact time scale but it was very intensive) anyway, she dropped a few ums on each of the first exams. For the remaining six after she started tassomai she got full ums.

Any more comments on Tassomai for 2019 ?

I have been reading and considering Tassomai for Sons Combined since but reviews seem a bit mixed my Son has his exams in 5 months! Are ther any alternatives to Tassomai that are less expensive.

sludge Have you looked at Seneca? My DD2 is y10 and the school have signed them all up. It is definitely a help as it keeps her focussed and she seems willing to do stuff on Seneca at times when she isn't up for other types of work. It isn't just for science.

Has anyone from last year needed to claim on the tassomai guarantee who had teacher assessment. Just trying to work out weather they honour their guarantee in these circumstances.

This year will be the same and possibly next year.

As their terms are unchanged am hoping to try this app. Any advice???