Exams- help?

[mergatroid]

How should I help my 15 year old DS?
He’s done his end of year exams at school and he’s very stressed about the results so far, especially going into Year 11 next year...
My husband has been unsupportive and basically told him he should have revised more, and needs to suck it up and do better next time. This has only succeeded in upsetting him further. He says he tried his hardest and really did revise but I’m honestly not sure if I believe him: he’s never been the most dedicated to school.
I don’t know how to console him when it really is his fault that his results are sub-par. We were thinking of a tutor, but they’re so expensive that would only be a last resort.
Advice would be very much appreciated.

I am a secondary school teacher and I would say that it's a good lesson to learn. It's not irretrievable. He can now put a plan of action together for each subject, maybe do an hour a day during the hols with the weekend off.
Maths - do 15 mins a day revision on a maths website
English read for 20 mins a day
Langs - 15 mins a day revising vocab on quizlet or similar.
Science - work through a study guide making notes

etc...

Extra study sessions are often offered by teachers in y11. I wouldn't spend money on a tutor until he has spent more time doing effective revision and is regularly attending the freebie sessions.

As for parental help,
A) email the teachers to ask for topic related revision advice
B) download past papers and mark schemes for your DS so that they can improve their exam technique

My daughter is doing year 10 exams too. It is hard for them - she is capable and organised but it is still easy to feel overwhelmed as there is so much content to learn. I agree that you need to help him get a plan in place. I’ve also bought revision guides for each subject (you need to know exam board). My daughter makes revision notes and I test her using the revision guide which also has exam questions.

DD1 used the revision timetable on Get Revising to allocate slots but also to plan what would be done in each of those. Combined with creating mindmaps for summarising and organising info, essay plans, practice questions and quizzes on things such as Seneca she had a good mix of different revision activities. It also highlighted the content she didn't know or was ropey on so that could either be addressed by revisiting her notes, using Dr Frost and other online resources, watching YouTube teaching videos e.g. Mr Bruff or asking her teachers at school to go over things with her.

If you can get hold of revision lists for this year, you may be able to help your DS plan out his time so he gets everything covered rather than spending lots of time on his favourite bits.

Teenagers aren’t always the best at judging how hard they are working! They also tend to like spending lots of time on not effective revision techniques but instead reading and highlighting, which give the illusion of learning.

www.learningscientists.org/

Has some good advise on how to make the most of your revision time.

Video summary.

Also, Seneca learning is free and covers most subjects. There is a paid part of the website which have some extra features which you could get but the free version is a great start.

Little but often is the way to go.

There is time to improve in year 11. They are still quite immature in Year 10 when writing exams. I invigilate exams and can see how they mature from the year 10 exams through to the real ones at the end of year 11.

The question I used with my older teen was. What do you think could have been better? That way they tell you and you don't lecture them.
Also they need tips to study effectively. This includes making flash cards, practicing answering questions and teaching someone else.

A starting point would be to go through the exams and work out why he lost marks:

• didn't understand the information
• didn't learn the information (in enough detail)
• didn't write down required information (why?)
• didn't understand what the question was asking for
• didn't use correct technical language in answer
• didn't follow a beneficial answering structure

Then he can see whether it was revision or exam technique that let him down for each subject and therefore whether he needs to focus on better revision time/techniques or doing practice papers to a mark scheme.

If he hasn't do so already, then if might be helpful to create revision cards / mind maps / whatever, for all units covered so far (even if not in end y10 exams) before school resumes.

Completely agree with Teen (who is very clued up) he needs to get his mock papers and go through them, preferably with you who appears supportive (you can't just say revise more if they are not revising effectively) and work out why he didn't get full marks for each question.

Identifying why he didn't is the key to improving then working out how he will approach that, as Teen says mindmaps/flashcards or online resources such as Seneca or Corbett maths. Once he has improved he could resit the same paper and see if the revision worked. It does require effort though.

I don't think an hour a day over the six week holidays is enough to see a significant improvement. Ds2 is year 10, is awake for around 14 hours a day and needs to pull up one subject grade, the rest from these tests are sitting around the 8 or 9 grade. He is very capable but needs to learn technique. He has already asked for my help for it over summer. But then he is motivated and engaged with school.