Daughter is bright but falls apart in exams

[pigdogridesagain]

Hi there I'm looking for some advice. DD is due to take her GCSEs this summer. She is a bright girl but not overly academic. She does try hard though but falls to bits in exams. Can anyone recommend any type of tutor than can help her with this?

Have you talked to the school about it? This is really common and they will have lots of experience and suggestions.

If she retains the information it’s maybe more of a confidence/nerves thing. How does she perform in mock exams?

Speak to school and see what they can suggest. Times have changed since I was last in school, But I would practice previous years exams at home, timed, to get used to the questions etc.

Does she do ok doing timed past papers at home which is a relaxing environment? Is the problem recalling the information or nerves?

You need to work out why she 'falls apart' before working out next steps.

Hi, my daughter went through a similar thing. Get her to write down exactly what happens when she’s in the exam and accept this and then work on overcoming it. Depending on the exam board and the way the school have taught her, get her to write the exam style question out e.g Q1. Identify four facts about X. Get her to create a step-by-step guide on how to answer this question (as if she’s explaining it to a year 7 pupil) and ensure she looks at timing, the number of marks awarded for each question and other tips given in school or other websites etc for each question. Once she does this for each question, she’ll feel more reassured and familiar with them, do timed question at a time and check it using the mark scheme then do the whole paper in timed conditions. My daughter did this with her tutor (I think it’s daunting doing it on her own or even for me to try and help her) and it was lovely to see her confidence grow and for her to overcome her ‘melT down‘ in exams, this method worked for all her exams too and she was more confident than before, I just wish I found her tutor earlier! Let me know how she gets on and if you would like me to recommend the tutor :).

I think an arts tutoring session would help. She may have metaphysical issues, the senses are overwhelmed in exam conditions, and we could look at themes of space, light and sound - I had the same problems (although of course in my 20's) in that I couldn't adapt to certain situations and process in my own mind the demands that learning to adapt would have solved. Art making invites a different way of thinking.. Many parents dismiss fine art, but I wholly recommend it. It can take a few sessions to get going, to form a trusted bond between tutor and student, but I think it might be something to consider. I have currently an 11yr old art student and we make art purely for fun, and skype is excellent....

Past exam questions are great way of practsing, especially getting used to writing for long period of time.

@pigdogridesagain This is a frequent problem for students. I do hope things will work out ok for your daughter with her GCSEs this year - while it may have been helpful to her not to take the exams I have a real concern for this year's GCSE students that they haven't had the opportunity to take public exams before entering their A-Level courses - and won't get a chance now before their A-levels...

I thinks Grateful20's advice and suggestions from 25th Jan are very helpful...

Other's strategies for building confidence with exams are finding areas where she is confident to perform (I have had students who're fine performing in their competitive sports for instance or maybe in acting) and having conversations with her on how she feels in those situations vs tests and exploring what she can learn from that...