Helping your children to study in stressful times

It's not easy persuading your children to study in uncertain times. The change of location, daily structure and even having a parent rather than a teacher help them, can throw even the most motivated of students. You may also be tempted to let it all slide but here's why it pays to keep schoolwork going.

Year 11 and Year 13

There is still speculation about how grades for GCSEs and A-Levels will be awarded. It looks likely that exam boards will be asking teachers to submit their judgement about the grade they believe students would have received if exams had gone ahead. Teachers will then take into account a range of evidence and data, including performance on mock exams and non-exam assessment. 

Clear guidance on how to do this fairly will be provided to schools and colleges. The exam boards will then combine this information with other relevant data, including prior attainment, and use this to produce a calculated grade for each student.

All students will then be able to appeal and sit the exam early in the next academic year for students who wish to and the November re-sits look likely to be this date.

It’s very stressful times for Year 11 and year 13 students who are probably feeling anxious about all of the above so try not to push too hard. A conversation around doing some revision to help prepare them for next year, albeit in a smaller and less structured way is worth having,

Even if they only do an hour a day until more details are released it will help them move more seamlessly to the next stage of your life whether this is starting university, college or sixth form courses.

Key Stage 3

Key Stage 3, also known as Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9, should be being set work from schools. The Government doesn't specify how many hours per week should be devoted to each subject, but a rough guidance from the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency (QCA) for schools suggests the following:

·      English, maths and science: three hours per subject per week

·      Modern languages: two hours

·      History, geography and RE: one and a quarter hours

·      Computing, art and design and music: one hour

At home, to motivate your children you can be much more flexible about how this is done – for instance, watching documentaries and podcasts can help in a variety of subjects like history and geography and even science. However, do focus on are maths and English. This can be done in a variety of ways through workbooks, and daily reading sessions.

Our online small group tutoring sessions can also help with peer-to-peer support, engagement and working through set lessons that your child may be struggling over. If you are interested, do get in touch.