LAST UPDATED- 7th April 2020

The dust is starting to settle on the complete change to our way of life that COVID-19 has caused, we are two weeks into our first three week stint of social distancing measures, and now seems like a good time to take stock of the current situation in education. Over the coming weeks, Total Maths Tutoring will be doing our utmost to keep you up to date on the developments regarding school closures, exam grades and what the plans are for reopening.

School closures

Schools are currently on their Easter break, due to return in a week or so, although this is fairly obviously not going to happen. It seems unthinkable that schools will reopen until we have gone well past the peak of COVID-19 infections. It seems that we may be nearing this peak in a week or so, however it looks like being several more weeks until social distancing will be eased gradually. It would be extremely surprising if schools were to open again for students before the May half term, with a likely return date sometime in late June or July. But what then? It seems logical that there will be two options; Students sit the normal summer term, go on their summer break as usual and we start a new school year from September, or students get no summer holiday and spend July and August in school making up for lost time. The second option seems unlikely. Exams have already been cancelled for year 6,11 and 13 students, with calculated grades given out. Would a lot be gained from having students in over the summer holidays, cooped up in school all summer having been cooped up at home for 2-3 months previous, unlikely. Consensus from education insiders seems to suggest school may be out until September, with the rest of this year being written off entirely. This is all speculation at present and I guess we won’t know for sure for a while yet.

Exams for GCSE, A level and SATS

These have all been cancelled, with students receiving a calculated grade based on past performance and teacher’s judgement. The system for this is complicated, but to summarise:

• Teachers will give a “centre grade” for each student, taking into account past performance and work. They must do this fairly and in line with the performance of their school in previous years. In other words, they can’t give all of their students high grades if this is not inline with the schools usual performance. Research shows any change for a school in terms of results will be quite small from one year to the next, and schools will need to respect this.
• Teachers will also need to rank each student in the year group, within the grade they have assigned. For example, everybody who receives a grade 5 in maths will be put in order from the “highest” grade 5 student to the “lowest” grade 5 student. This will help the calculated grades to be standardised by the exam boards.
• Exam boards will then moderate these results to make them roughly fit in line with previous years, in terms of the number of students achieving each grade for each subject. If schools have over egged their results, the lowest ranked students in each grade may be moved to the grade below, and vice versa.
• Calculated grades will be released to students in July, much earlier than when they would usually receive them in the middle of August.
• There will be an appeal process, and students will get an opportunity when schools reopen to sit their exams, should their grade be less than they need to move on in their studies.

A student-friendly break down of this can be found here

College and University applications

Essentially, nothing here should change, with Universities using applications and calculated grades to admit students, and colleges doing similar. There was a host of Universities last week, giving students unconditional offers or amended offers to try and fill courses up fast, worried about the possibility of poor applications and the financial implications that could bring, however this has now passed due to the government banning this practice for a few weeks at least.  Anyone worried about universities and the application process should follow this link to find out more.

Universities, governing bodies and schools are all working together to make sure COVID-19 causes as little disruption to students’ educational journeys as possible, and the proposals in place seem to cover most bases. There will be many students feeling aggrieved when results are published, maybe those who didn’t take their mock exams seriously will be disappointed, maybe those who were coasting along but were going to knuckle down when exam season came around. However, in the large majority of cases, students will receive the grade they would have got in the summer had they sat their exams.

Over the coming weeks we will be continually updating this article and will post all updates on our Facebook page as well!

It may feel like the GCSEs are still a world of time away and revising for them may seem like something to consider much closer to the time. However, contrary to common practice by students, it is not advisable to leave revision until the days or even weeks before the exam. Numerous studies have shown that it is prudent for students to allow themselves a substantial period of time (months) to effectively revise for formal examinations. ‘Cramming’ information immediately before the exam has only been shown to slightly improve a student’s short term recall and has little effect on long-term retention, therefore it is usually ineffective before GCSE exams due to the volume of information a student is required to retain.

A study by Professor John Dunlovksy of Kent State University, reviewed a range of revision techniques and assessed their overall effectiveness based on a range of factors (the full study can be found here). Common practices such as highlighting and underlining were found to have little effect in aiding students’ retention of information and were, in some cases detrimental (Glover, Zimmer, Fibeck, & Plake, 1980).

We have put together our top 5 revision strategies based on this research:

1. Elaborative interrogation

This is a highly effective method of revision whereby students are asked ‘why’ questions, in order to generate their own explanations to support facts. It was found that students who were prompted by tutors to answer ‘why’ questions substantially improved their accuracy in recalling information (72%) when compared to those who had not (37%) (Seifert, 1993). This technique enhances learning by supporting the integration of new information with existing knowledge and has proven to be most effective when the student is supported by an expert (e.g. a tutor or teacher) rather than a peer.

2. Self-explanation

This requires a student to verbalise aspects of their processing while learning and has been shown to have a high impact in solving logical reasoning and mathematical problems (Wong, Lawson, & Keeves, 2002). It is also very useful in helping teachers to aid students in overcoming misconceptions as it helps the teacher to identify. It is worth noting here that this is easier for teachers to achieve in a one to one setting over a regular classroom due to the time demands associated.

3. Distributed practice (retrieval practice)

Distributed practice encourages students to revisit learning material numerous times over a prolonged period while leaving a period of time between each encounter. This can be through simply reviewing notes or attempting questions on topics that have not been recently learned. This technique has been found to be highly effective across a range of students of all ages (Carpenter, Pashler, & Cepeda, 2009) when practiced over a substantial time period (so more than the week before the exam).

4. Re-reading

Rothkopf (1968) found that recall steadily improved dependent on the number of times a texts was re-read with ‘spaced’ re-reading having the most significant effect. This practice works on similar principles as distributed practice and suggests that familiarity with information alone increases recall.

5. Practice testing

Despite its undeniable unpopularity among students, there is 100 years of research supporting the supposition that testing improves learning (Roediger & Butler, 2011). This practice is often associated with giving students graded, summative, end of topic assessments however which is not what were are talking about here. As a revision method, it is far more effective for students to engage in ‘low-stakes’ testing (formative tests where the idea is to learn and improve based on your results). This has proven to be universally effective across a range of ages and for a multitude of subjects.

Whatever the method a student chooses, one thing is true of them all – start now to ensure the best chance of exam success.

Mock exams are an important time of year for any student working towards their exams in the summer. They are quite often used to make decisions about what tier students should sit for the real thing, and in extreme cases can be used to help decide a student’s grade, should they be ill when they are due to sit their summer exams. It can be a real wake up call for students who have been dragging their heels with revision up until now, and if students are to get the most out of the experience, they need to approach them in the right way. Here’s our top three tips to make the most of mocks:

Treat it like a dress rehearsal – The exam season in June and July is a tiring, grueling time for most students. The relentlessness for some students of taking up to 30 different exams, with up to three being taken on the same day, should not be underestimated. Students need to take these mock exams as seriously as they can. It is their only opportunity to practice and experience what this situation feels like. This means practice being organized, practice being prepared with the right equipment etc, and practice at being resilient when it’s tough and they’re tired out. The parent who allows their child to stay off school and miss mocks because of tiredness, or because they have a sniffle, is really not preparing them well for what’s ahead in the summer. Would they be allowed to miss the real thing for this same reason?

Revise in moderation – Revision is important and should be done well in advance. We all know that last minute cramming on the night before (or day of) an exam doesn’t work and increases stress. Get started with revision early, and once exams start, a bit of last minute flicking through revision cards is great, but not staying up til 1am stressing out! Being awake and well rested is far more important than revision.

Look after yourself – The body and brain need to be fueled properly to perform well in exams. Nobody is suggesting for a moment that when revising, students are not going to be snacking on biscuits and sweets. So long as this is in moderation, no harm is done. Energy drinks and caffeine based drinks as a way of keeping going and studying late can have catastrophic consequences, as any fans of the inbetweeners will be only too aware of! In general try and eat slow release energy foods such as oats and pulses, with plenty of fruit and vegetables at meal time to get those vitamins in. Avoid too much sugar if you can. Flapjacks can make a good revision treat. On top of this, your brain does not function properly if it is dehydrated,so plenty of water, and plenty of sleep too if you can! On the morning of exams, no rolling out of bed at 8:00 for an 8:30 exam. Get up early, wake up and feel prepared!

Once the mocks are done, remember that they are formative exams. The idea of them is to learn from the experience, and identify topics to work on. Students who do this effectively are giving themselves a great headstart for their revision for the real thing. Now is a great time to do an inventory of strengths and weaknesses, and make a plan for what should be prioritized when revising for the summer exams. It might be a good idea for students to write a short piece about how the exam period made them feel, what went well and what could be improved next time. You can then refer back to this as a start point for the summer exams, and how to get the most out of them.