These are the questions you need to be asking your teenager
How to know if your teenager is revising effectively
My mum and I run a revision coaching business.
And yet,
When my younger brother was doing his GCSEs,
And mum would ask him how his revision was going,
And he would reply “good,”
She didn’t really have much else to say.
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Let’s step back for a minute.
All parents want their children to feel confident and competent going into their exams.
And all parents want to ensure that if their teenager is going to begrudgingly revise,
That they are at least going to spend their time effectively.
Because what’s worse than not doing as well as you hoped,
Is really trying,
Putting in the hours,
And still not doing well.
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The Problem
The problem is that it has been a little while since you all did your GCSEs.
And furthermore,
They have changed the system from A* to F to 1 – 9,
Amongst other changes.
Therefore, in order to be able to support your teenager to effectively revision,
You have to understand how the exams work,
And subsequently the best questions to ask.
This is why I have made it one of my core goals to assist parents in understanding the essential information about the education system so that they can support their teenager from an informed perspective.
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The Questions
So instead of the conversation going something like this:
Parent: Hey how did your revision go?
Teenager: Good
Parent: ah great, did you do a past paper?
Teenager: Yup
Parent: Great, how did you do?
Teenager: I got 42 out of 80
And the conversation ending there as you don’t really know how good or bad that is,
And even if you did,
What would you ask next?
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As many of you know I believe past papers are all about identifying what you don’t know in an exam context.
Therefore, a great next question could be:
- Which topic(s)/sub-topic(s) did you get wrong that you feel like with a little bit of revision you have the most chance of getting right, and picking up a few more marks, next time?
Now I appreciate this line of questioning may get some puzzled looks from your teenager.
But it is so worth it.
Students need to use past papers to then take intentional action on what will help them to do better quicker.
Another great question you could ask is:
- How are you planning on getting better at [insert the name of the topic/sub-topic they mentioned] before your next past paper? What tools are you going to use? How are you going to test that you subsequently understand it better?
Or you could even ask more straight forward questions like:
- Where are your notes from the topic(s)/sub-topic(s) you mentioned last time?
- Where are you keeping your past papers after you are done with them?
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The point of this newsletter is to show how equipping parents with the essential information,
As I try and do in these newsletters,
Will allow you to support your teenager in a more strategic, informed and effective fashion.
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I hope everyone has a great week ahead,
Best wishes,
Joel