Preparing exam groups

Looking for some quick tips on how to best prepare exam groups for upcoming exams?

Firstly we need to make clear that as the class teacher you are the one with the most knowledge about how to best prepare your students. Don't let anybody 'tell you', you can ask and seek advice but if in doubt then go with your gut instinct. You know your pupils, you know what content they have covered and what they need to cover/revise. Trust yourself. Please don't take my advice as gospel, adapt it to you and your subject but hopefully it will help!

Coming into my second year at the amazing Perry Beeches The Academy secondary school in Birmingham I was looking to take on some extra responsibility. I have really enjoyed preparing some 'Teaching and learning newsletters' that we email out to faculty members every few weeks. The first one covered ideas from our internal teachmeet! The most recent one was preparing exam groups. I spoke to teachers in and out of the faculty and put together a summary of our conversation into this newsletter. I found out some amazing things, particularly from one of our amazing History teachers.

I was advised to be as organised as possible. He told me to work out exactly how many lessons I have with my groups and plan how many lessons I will spend covering different topics and units before their exam. I was told that although no one likes doing it, it's important that we spend time with our target pupils. I've taken that on a step by categorising pupils into 2 groups (please note this is just for me, not for anyone else in the school), the first is those pupils that will definitely pass and the second is those pupils who are at risk. This means I can be as honest as possible with myself, I know exactly who I need to target in lessons with questions (verbal and written), with differentiated resources, with targeted support from our team teacher/myself. These are the pupils I want to spend as much time with as possible.

Set regular assessments to ensure pupils are constantly practicing how to answer the exam questions. In Geography we will be testing pupils once every two weeks. This may prove to be test overload but we feel like it is important to set these regular tests to recap smaller chunks of content, but also keep revision constant as pupils revise for these mini tests when in fact they are revising for their GCSE exam.

Targeted homework. Set pupils specific tasks/sections to revise. Give pupils pre-prepared sheets to fill in to ensure they are revising. Looking at my own pupils, I question whether or not they are actually aware of what needs to be revised, I doubt if they have the skill of picking out what the key information is. If I plan the questions on the sheet then I can ensure they are revising the correct content.

In terms of lesson activities we may be getting to the time of pupils continuously answering questions and reflecting/recapping individually. One task I have found to be particularly useful is asking pupils to mark your exam answers. In Geography, pupils need to answer 9 mark case study questions which requires them knowing some very specific information such as how many people died during a particular earthquake. For these case studies I have written 3 model answers and I want pupils to mark all 3 of my answers using the mark scheme. I have made sure that most of the answers are roughly the same length so they cannot just tell me the longest one is the best. Sometimes the shortest answer is the best one. In this activity they are not only seeing the correct answer for a question, they are understanding where to pick up marks and where they may be losing marks.

The best piece of advice I received was start from September of Year 7. Get pupils to want to do well for themselves, and for you.

Finally, do not panic. There is still time, but do not waste it. Use every minute, continually push, have high expectations, contact home, guide pupils through the content, then let them reflect and practice.

If you would like any of the resources I have mentioned, or have any further tips for me as a teacher please contact me on twitter:

@crawleyJC

Good luck!!