Talk to me about exams in senior school and how to revise for them

[MrsFogi]

I have just discovered DC1 will have exams at the end of May. Can anyone give me any advice on how a year 7 should go about revising, how much revision is expected at this stage, what support I should be offering etc etc. Any insight/experience at all I'd be very grateful because I always did terribly at school exams and never had any guidance from my parents (so spent my time making crazy revision timetables and simply reading the books).

I get the impression that 'y7 exams' vary a lot from school to school.

At DD's school they were tests done in class. Maths and Science were revised for, but we only got topic lists from the school about 1 week in advance, which in my opinion made a mockery of attempting to do much useful formal revision. Other subjects were more 'skill assessments' than 'knowledge' tests and required no revision beyond the bit they did in school. We didn't even get their exercise books sent home so doing revision was impossible.

On the other hand, if it is full blown formal exams, then search this board for stuff about GCSE revision such as revision time tables and making revision resources (e.g. cards, mind maps) and doing active learning (practice questions, writing stuff down, quizzes on internet).

Your best bet is to contact the head of year or subject teachers for guidance. It will vary based on the school and whether they set/stream pupils based on results. Hopefully the subject teacher should give some guidance on what to revise before the exam but as pp said this may be given 1/2 weeks in advance depending on when the test is actually written! In schools I have worked in year 7 exams vary between knowledge based or skills based, theoretically, skills should be embedded in the curriculum so shouldn't require revision.

Also, BBC bitesize is a great revision/support tool which you can try to encourage your child to use. It offers information guides and then quick multiple choice tests to check understanding. Worth a look if exercise books don't come home.

DD’s school do exams at end of each year but the major goal is building in good habits and making it less of a mystery for when the do the real thing. She is now in Y8 and her end of year exams are mid June. No homework set during Easter (compared to some of her friends at other schools who have frightful amounts) but she chose to set herself some revision in subjects she wasn’t so strong in. This involved a dvd or two in French rather than English and a few other rather relaxed type of revision sessions. She will do more during the half term break. She has got better at working out where she needs to put in more effort and I am not really a part of it so I would say in Y7 get them into a good habit to work independently rather than you do too much, be in the background supporting and suspending chores for the period of the exams etc

Make sure they know how to spot where they are making errors as this is quite key, if they don’t know then need to ask their teacher and need to ask for tips of how to spot when something isn’t right or they aren’t sure.

For DD Y7 tests were a little stressful as it determined the maths set for the next year or two but in most instances it only serves to see they are on track and to help get them into good habits and make it less stressful when they do the real thing.

It shouldn’t really be a stressful experience, quite the opposite.