The grades they achieve will play a significant role in their future. I would like to offer a few suggestions to make your life easier at a time that can be equally as stressful for parents as it is for your child who is sitting the exams!
What Difference Can a Parent Make?
You do not have to be an expert in any of the subjects your child is studying and revising for in order to help, you just need to know how to best support your child and to help them prepare for the exams. You are the expert on your own child, and so your active support and encouragement can make a big difference to your child’s motivation in facing their exams.
Revision Tips for Parents
- Help your child to make a study / revision timetable which includes the dates and times of their examinations and planned revision sessions.
- Encourage them to break revision into manageable chunks and to take regular breaks in between revision sessions. It’s far more effective to do 30 minutes of successful revision – rather than hours on end that get nowhere.
- Keep the revision timetable on display in your home so that you can help them to stick to the plan.
- Encourage your son / daughter to ask for help at school on any work that they do not understand.
- Encourage your child to attend all intervention and revision sessions offered by the school.
- Make sure that they have a study area that is quiet and well-lit with no distractions.
- Check how they are doing by asking them to explain something that they have just revised.
But, most important of all, help your child to keep everything in perspective. Remind them that the better they prepare and the more confident they feel in their subject knowledge the less stressed they will feel when the exams start. But by the end of June the exams will be over and it will be the start of the long summer holidays.
Ann Byrne
Deputy Head of Secondary