It’s the beginning of another year, and everyone seems to be putting together a long list of new year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, they don’t always go according to plan, and people often give up after a couple of weeks. As students, however, we can’t let that happen! We need to try and stick to our study-related resolutions as much as we can, but how can we go about it?
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Getting into the Right Mind-set
It is tremendously difficult to force yourself to revise, especially when the people around you aren’t revising too. The best way to motivate yourself during this tough time is to think about the results you’ll get from it. Yes, watching TV does sound like a good way to relax but it isn’t going to help you get any qualifications. Think of results day in August, when you will nervously turn up to school, sleepless as you were in anticipation of your results all night, and open your envelope slowly only to see ten 8s and 9s on your paper! When you get your results, all the hard work you put in will be worth it and what’s even greater is that you’ll get an extra-long summer to make up for the time you spent revising!
As well as motivating yourself with the time off you will have later, you must think of how significant your mock exams are. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that mocks are merely tests that the school use; they’re not official exams. This is true but these exams are a lot more important than you think. Mocks give you a clear idea of what level you’re working at now and what level you might get when it comes to the real exams. Therefore, it is incredibly important to revise for your mocks in the same way that you would revise for a public exam to get a clear idea of where you’re working and what you need to do to improve. Also, in extreme circumstances, mocks can have an impact on the actual grade you get. We need to prepare for the worst and, you never know, you could be ill on your exam day and this will significantly impact your performance, in fact, you might not even be able to sit the exam at all! In this situation, your school could apply for special conditions where the exam board take your mock and predicted grades into consideration to decide on your final grade. Reminding yourself of why these exams are so important will help to motivate you to revise.
2. Making a Revision Timetable
So, you’re in the correct mind-set and ready to revise but there is one problem: where do you start? It can be quite overwhelming, looking at your abundant pile of textbooks, handouts and class notes without a clue about where to begin. The best way to start is to make a list of
all the things you have to revise for under sub-headings for each subject. This could be topics, like Trigonometry or Circle Theorems for Maths, or texts for English like Macbeth or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Then rank the topics from easiest to hardest so you know what areas you need to spend more time on.
Example revision time table during the holiday:
Example revision time table during term time:
You should revise for at least 3 hours on weekdays and 5 to 6 hours on weekends and your timetable should tailor to this. Decide on when you want to revise: do you feel more focussed early in the morning or are you more productive after school? Set your revision time accordingly giving yourself breaks often; some people like to revise for three hours then have an hour break, others prefer to study for 45 minutes then take a 5-minute break. It’s totally up to you and how you work but ensure that you are never too lenient on yourself and try your best to stick to your revision timetable. If something comes up and you can’t revise, add it onto another date, if you accidentally sleep in, do your revision in the evening. This type of discipline will put you into a familiar routine and ensure that you are able to focus your revision on the areas you need to.
These are the first steps to success; you need to get into the mind-set and plan your revision. In our next post, we’ll discuss how we you can revise and stick to your revision timetable instead of giving up as we often do with all our other new year’s resolutions!
We have been receiving great feedback about our online lessons on Zoom! We are keen to make sure that all our students are continuing to make progress despite this difficult period! It is so reassuring to know that our students feel like they are able to structure their work from home and use their time productively. We are extremely pleased to be supporting parents and students during the lock down!
“As my son is staying at home during lock down, he is doing online classes with Ruby teacher for science. These classes have been a huge help because all the topics are covered. He has a very dedicated teacher. I highly recommend Ruby teacher”- Mrs Suganya Sivappriyan – Parent of a Year 10 science student”
“As a working parent, one thing that concerned me gravely was my children’s progress during lock down. Ruby’s home learning took that worry away! Ruby wasted no time in starting online learning to minimise the loss of learning. My children have separate timetables, weekly online learning sessions, home work with marking schemes and feedback given to them time to time to help them improve. During this pandemic, I am glad that my children have had the secure routine and ongoing learning” – Ketti Panesar – Parent of a Year5 (11+) and Year 9 students
“The online sessions are extremely helpful and convenient. It helped me to develop my chemistry and maths skills in a comfortable environment. The quality of online learning in these sessions is great and maintained well 👍. I would highly recommend Ruby’s Tuition.” Fathima – A level maths and chemistry student
“It has been really useful that Ruby has started to do virtual tuition session. It has brought back structure to the kids’ home learning, without this, the kids’ effort over the past year would have been lost. Very grateful that Ruby could get the sessions up and running so fast.”- Samia Kamran, Year2 & Year 5 ( 11+) students’ mum
” Hi Ruby, just to say today’s session was very good and there was a lot of interaction between the tutor and students” – Mr Islam – year 4 student’s dad
“I would like to thank Ruby and the team for finding the best way to teach both my sons through online during this horrible event. My children are up to date with their studies. I would highly recommend Ruby’s tuition.”- Dinushi Ranasingha – Parent of Year 3 and Year 5 ( 11+) students
“Thanks to Miss Ruby for helping my child through online teaching during this unexpected situation. It was a good start for learning from home.” – Mrs Murugananthan, Year2 student’s mum
The coronavirus has affected us all greatly. For families associated with Ruby’s tuition, the greatest challenge has been adapting to working from home, whilst also ensuring their children are productive and learning, despite not being able to physically attend school.
Understandably, many students are struggling to maintain learning with accordance to the national curriculum due to a lack of routine and structure. There is also further uncertainty for year 11 and 13 students regarding their GCSE and A level exams and grades, as well as how and if they should proceed with their revision during this period.
We hope the following blog will help bring some clarity to the situation.
Ruby’s Tuition has kept up to date with the latest government announcements regarding the education system, whether that be about schools or exam boards, and we are keen to share the most relevant and salient information:
- Regarding the grading of official exams:
- Your school or college will be asked to send exam boards 2 pieces of information for each subject:
- The grade they believe you were most likely to get if you were taught as normal, if you were learning as normal, and if exams had occurred as normal.
- For each subject, your school will rank order the students within each grade.
- Your school or college will be asked to send exam boards 2 pieces of information for each subject:
This information will be used to formal standardised judgements. Your school or college will consider a range of performance indicators such as your class work and homework; your results in assignments and mock exams; any non-exam assessments or course works, and your general progress throughout the course. This information will allow Ofqual, along with exam boards, to standardise grades across schools and colleges to ensure that results are as fair as possible and that grades are not biased by the generosity of your teachers. This means the final grade you get could vary from the grade your school sent to the exam board.
Why is this a potential problem?
Say in the past, 5% of the students at your school have achieved a 9 in Maths. This year, your school predicts 15 of 100 students will achieve a 9 in Maths, and ranks them from 1-15, with 1 being the person who is the most secure/highest attaining student and so on. As only 5% of students have achieved a 9 in the past, most likely the top 5 students will actually get the 9.
This means despite being deserving of a grade, you might not achieve it due to your school’s past performance.
Our advice?
PLEASE do not wait until results day to start revision!
- Results day:
- GCSE results day: August 13th 2020
- A level results day: August 20th 2020
- If you’re not happy with your grades:
- Unfortunately, you cannot challenge your grades.
- However, there is an opportunity to sit your exams during Autumn 2020 if you’re not happy with your grades.
This is why it is paramount that you start revision early! Please make sure you’re not in a position where you are re-teaching yourself 2 years worth of content in a few weeks.
- How can we help?
With the above information. Ruby’s Tuition have initiated a plan of action to support students with their upcoming exams (from Key Stage 1-3, GCSE, A-level and 11+). In addition to providing support with exam preparation, Ruby’s Tuition will be continuing to teach students according to the national curriculum.
Ruby’s Tuition is currently using the online learning platform ‘Zoom’ to support its students. Lessons are taught to small groups of 4-6 students who are of similar ability.
We have already successfully taught our 11+ students, GCSE and A-level students via Zoom and are keen to expand! With this approach, we are able to clearly communicate with our students, allowing for tutors and students to ask questions about tasks as well as participate in a lively class discussion. Furthermore, Zoom has a blackboard-like feature in which tutors can post pictures of the task or work set and also draw diagrams or write questions out. Ruby’s Tuition has re-created a fully interactive learning experience for our students, whilst maintaining intimate group sizes to allow for ample contact between each child and our tutors. We are adamant about continuing to provide excellent standards of teaching and crafted learning for our students despite the circumstances.
We are grateful to have received plenty of positive feedback about our online lessons, parents have particularly appreciated the fact our lessons are highly interactive and encourage student participation, whilst also being productive.
Students have found that attending the online sessions has helped them structure their work as well be more productive in terms of revision.
Ruby’s Tuition is determined to provide continuous support to students, hence why we are accessible via phone, email or social media. Please feel free to contact us!
We would like to congratulate our students, their hard work has paid off! We wish them all the success in their higher studies and whatever their future holds for them!
It has been a pleasure to witness the progress that our students have made in all three core subjects this year. With the new GCSE curriculum in place, students had to work extra hard in order to cover more content and practise new exam question styles. Despite this challenge, the students and tutors at Ruby’s Tuition have worked incredibly hard to prepare for these examinations.
Maths (Higher tier students): 100% 9-5 (A*-C)
Over 75% 9-6 (A*-B)
English Language/Literature:
With the exception of one student, who due to extenuating circumstances couldn’t perform their best, all of our students achieved 9-4 (A*-C)
Triple Science: 100% 9-6 (A*-B)
Double Science: 100% 9-5 (A*-C)
ALL of our double science students improved by at least 2 grades since they started with us!
Despite all of these statistics, our greatest achievement this year has been encouraging and boosting the confidence of our students. We have witnessed students go from absolutely detesting maths, to choosing it as an A level subject – which is a greater success to us than any percentage or statistic!