FEATURE FOCUS: EXAMS
Helping with the impact on student mental health and anxiety in the approach to exams
cohort of GCSE Exam Takers, an increased level of mental health issues. This year’s Year 11 students were the ones who missed the social development that normally comes between Year 6 and 7 and it has taken a huge toll in terms of lower confidence, increased anxiety and feelings of isolation.
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n our first look at exam season this month we’re delighted to hear from Paul Flint, Science teacher and Author of “The Exam Slayer”, who has some great advice for your students going into exams this year.
This time of the year always creates a stressful effect on student mental health, not to mention their parents and teachers. Couple the normal exam stress and anxiety with the aftermath of educational changes and disruption because of the Covid 19 pandemic, then we have in 2024’s
Reducing anxiety and stress The uncertainty the pandemic caused is still lingering in the system. Mock exam papers are being withheld “just in case”. They are not being released to students after they are marked, when the major purpose of past exam questions is to understand the answers that were wrong. The effect of learning from a mistake has more retention in the brain than getting questions correct so we need to celebrate more of the mistakes and reduce the anxiety of exams. Let’s look at the ways we can reduce the stress and anxiety through exam techniques and revision skills with simple learning methods that will bring quick rewards, higher grades and more exam confidence.
The first part to getting kids to do so much better in exams is to help them on the path to believing in themselves which comes from within. This can be facilitated by a few simple questions.
Try these with a class and see what happens: - “If you could have any exam result you wanted
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no matter what anyone else said you could - Why would you want it?”
The answer doesn’t matter as long as it is real for the student- it can be any reason from doing better than the kid next to them, to proving parents / teachers wrong to being a plumber, doctor, dentist etc. It doesn’t matter, the key is it came from them.
The next question is – What would a person who gets those exam results do right now? They will find their own answer to this question, it must be their own answer and it changes the way they view the task of revision.
After well over 10,000 hours of private 1:1 tutoring my view was that it is fine to provide 1:1 tutoring for those who have access to it, but the benefits of my personal skills are only available to around 40 students a year. I know in every case no matter who they were their confidence and self-belief went up, their anxiety went down and their results climbed so they got to where they wanted to be. The overriding factor though was always the desire to do better which often came when they were shown they could. Most of the skills I teach are very simple but that doesn’t mean they are easy to implement!
First skills
Here are the first skills I encourage you to practise. • Read through the whole paper first.
May 2024
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