Good questions to ask at parents’ evening
Spring is the school term when you often have the last vital parents’ evening before the summer exams begin. Mocks are over and schools schedule the parents’ evening as a chance to get vital messages across to parents and students. There should be an opportunity to...
Getting your career on track after graduation
Getting your career on track after graduation can feel difficult. Have you been struggling to find the ‘right’ job since you finished university? Have you fallen into the trap of staying in the ‘in-between’ job after coming home, before getting your ‘proper’ job? It...
Study habits for sixth form success
Going from studying ten subjects at GCSE to studying three or four subjects at A levels, or even one or two if you are studying BTECs, is a breeze! Plus, you have free time to study in…or go to the shops, chat with your mates, go home…It’s definitely a breeze! Fast...
The advantages and disadvantages of taking a gap year
Each year about 30,000 students defer their university course to take a gap year and if you include those that take a gap year without officially deferring, then the figure is much higher. Why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of taking a gap year? There are...
Stop procrastinating and start revising.
The clock is ticking, the calendar is counting down the days. Six weeks to go, five weeks to go, four weeks to go before your exams start. When are you going to start revising? Tomorrow! At the weekend! Next week! Before you know it, your exams are starting tomorrow....
Ten Reasons to Revise for Mock Exams
Do you have mock exams coming up in January or February? If so, we have ten reasons to revise for mock exams. Just when you think you have got to the end of a very long term and want to spend your Christmas holidays sleeping, socialising and sitting in front of the...
Post A level Choices: Degree, Degree Apprenticeship or Apprenticeship
Through year 12 students will start thinking about what their post A-level choices are and what they would like to do after sixth form. Three of the main opportunities open to students are: going to university to complete an undergraduate degree, applying for a degree...
Primary tutoring and mentoring – the top ten benefits
I’m often asked by parents of primary Year 5 and 6 pupils for advice on how to support their child as the transition to secondary school becomes ever closer. Often parents and carers cannot envisage their ‘little ones’ sitting SATs exams or managing to organise their...
A level Results Day – everything you need to know
Every student, even the most confident, who has sat A levels is nervous about A level results day. It is one of those red (or black) letter days, which you’ll remember for the rest of your life as being either one of the happiest or one of the worst. A level results...
Top tips for recall and retrieval
How do you possibly remember all the content required for ten GCSE subjects or three or four A level subjects? The quotes in English Literature, the key dates and events in history, the formulae in science, the key concepts in RE, the hundreds of subject specific...
Top tips for learning languages
My top tips for learning languages. Many people find learning foreign languages difficult and they struggle to keep on top of the vocabulary and grammar, but there are some simple things you can do to improve your skills and develop your competency in another...
Supporting your child through their GCSEs and A levels
If you have a child who is sitting their GCSEs and A levels this year, it can feel as stressful for you as it is for them. Often parents can feel the pressure of exams more than their children partly because they feel helpless in the process. As parents we want ways...
A simple guide to UCAS
A simple guide to UCAS is needed because it can be a minefield of confusing jargon, deadlines and hoops to jump through if you haven’t done it before. Even if you are an experienced head of sixth form or adviser and use it every year there are always changes to learn...
How can parents support children during their exams?
How can parents support children during their exams? GCSE students have on average twenty five exams spread over a six week period, starting in the middle of May and finishing towards the end of June. This does not take into account any coursework that needs...
Applying for Medicine – what you need to know
There are forty four medical schools in the UK. They are all unique. Some, like Edinburgh, are old, established and world famous, while others, such as Edge Hill, are brand new and hardly known. Some, like Swansea and Warwick, are graduate entry only, while others,...
How to make an effective revision timetable
Sometimes it is the basics of revision and studying that need addressing. I recently asked a parent of a student in Year 9 what she would like support with for her diligent, hard working daughter and she instantly replied with, “how to make an effective revision...
Mock exams are more important than ever
Mock exams are more important than ever. Many Year 11 students will be starting their second set of mock exams or key assessments after the Christmas holiday. It is normal for Year 11 and Year 13 students to have two sets of mock exams before the ‘real’ exams in the...
How to choose the right A level subjects
Autumn term is when Year 11 students are having to choose their A level subjects. Schools and sixth form colleges are enticing students and their parents with open evenings and glossy brochures to study familiar favourites like Geography, Maths and History and a range...
Transition to high school – how to make it easier
I recently did a transition session with a Year 7 student and we added up how many teachers he has. The answer was a staggering twenty four teachers. In some subjects he has three teachers. He has gone from a small primary school with only one teacher to twenty four...
A parent’s guide to UCAS – what you need to know
In a normal year, Year 12 lays the foundation for making UCAS applications in Year 13. It used to include attending open days, visiting UCAS fairs, completing work experience and having workshops on writing personal statements. It’s a tried and tested process aimed at...
Seven ways to study in the summer holidays!
Seven ways to study in the summer holidays? I am a great advocate for school holidays and especially summer holidays. They are there to re-charge, rest and recuperate students and teachers from the previous term, so that you return to school feeling refreshed and...
Clearing 2022: How to be successful
Clearing 2022: How to be successful. Every year thousands of students find their perfect course through Clearing on UCAS. It is there for universities to fill their courses as well as providing a safety net for students who have been unsuccessful in their...
Choosing your A level subjects
My son in Year 10 recently asked me what is the best subject when choosing your A level subjects, to get into university. I thought for a while and then said Maths, because more university courses specify Maths A level than any other subject. However, there is a BIG...
How to get a graduate job?
In the race to ensure you get a 2:1 it’s easy to think it’s worth focusing all your time on your study to ensure a high grade. However, when it comes to applying for graduate jobs, it’s clear from employers that other activities on your CV, including some relevant...
How much revision to do over Easter?
The days are getting longer, we have sunshine and warm weather and there is a two week school holiday, which follows a very long winter term. It’s the Easter holidays, which translates as two weeks of endless social possibilities if you are a teenager. Easter also...
Improving concentration in remote lessons – ten tips
Improving concentration in remote lessons is the key to making the most of remote learning, where students are having to concentrate for up to five or six hours a day, in lessons via Zoom, Teams or Meet. Most of these are now live, which students prefer, but often the...
Seven homeschooling lessons from lockdown
Here we go again…or do we? Is it the same as last time or have we learned our seven homeschooling lessons from lockdown in the spring summer of 2020? I have three boys working from home, in years 13, 10 and 6. Keeping a harmonious household certainly has its...
How academic coaching benefits students
Academic coaching benefits students by enabling them to achieve their full potential through the teaching of revision, study and exam techniques, that work to their strengths and learning styles. These can then be put into practice to make for effective revision and...
Building resilience and confidence through primary mentoring
Building resilience and confidence through primary mentoring. For those working in Education, Autumn marks the start of a new academic year and a fresh start. However, we are slowly realising that living with COVID 19 doesn’t mean a ‘normal’ new year and a return to...
Choosing a high school during the pandemic
Choosing which high school to send your child to is one of the biggest and toughest decisions you will make as a parent, but choosing a high school during a pandemic is even more difficult. Gone is the open evening, when the school puts on its best show to attract...
Returning to school running during the pandemic
I have three boys returning to school running this month, two of whom, like many children, haven’t been to school since March 23rd of this year. One son, in Year 13, returned for occasional days for four weeks before the summer holidays. They are all excited to be...
What next? Your options after A level results day.
WHAT NEXT? Your options after A level results day. If August 13th is a significant day in your house there’s also no doubt been much soul searching over the last few months about student options after A level results day. The Covid-19 pandemic has presented this...
A parents’ rough guide to UCAS
A parents' rough guide to UCAS to help you and your child make informed decisions about next year. I have a son in Year 12. This time last year I was looking forward to taking him to university open days, perhaps having a couple of weekends away in cities as far...
Back to school after lockdown
June 1st is the date that the Prime Minister announced that children can begin returning to school in England following ten weeks of lockdown. He announced that it would be done in stages, with primary schools opening up for years six, one and reception and the hope...
Supporting your child’s mental health during lockdown
Supporting your child’s mental health during lockdown is not easy, especially when I’m probably not the only parent who has lost track of what day it is, and how many weeks the country has been in lockdown. As we all attempted to navigate a new normal, juggling work,...
Supporting your children with homeschooling in KS5
Our fifth and final part in our series looks at supporting your children with homeschooling in KS5. Let’s be honest, it isn’t an easy task to support your seventeen year old son or daughter, who is used to working independently, starting to spread their wings and...
Supporting your children with homeschooling in KS4
Our fourth part in our series looks at supporting your children with homeschooling in KS4, the GCSE years of secondary school, from the ages of fourteen to sixteen. Students from KS4 fall into two halves. Those in Year 11 who have had GCSE examinations cancelled, and...
Homeschooling Resources
Primary (many are for secondary as well) Maths https://nrich.maths.org/14600 https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/primary https://corbettmathsprimary.com/5-a-day/ https://www.stem.org.uk/home-learning/primary#maths https://wild.maths.org/...
Supporting your children with homeschooling in KS3
Our third part of our series looks at supporting your children with homeschooling in KS3, the first few years of secondary school, from the ages of eleven to fourteen. This is often a very awkward age when your children are developing into teenagers and one minute...
Supporting your children with homeschooling in KS2
Our second part of our series looks at supporting your children with Homeschooling in KS2, the older half of primary school, from the ages of seven to eleven. Supporting your children with homeschooling in KS2 is a challenge, particularly when you’re trying to work...
Supporting your children with homeschooling in KS1
Supporting your children with homeschooling is a challenge, especially when you are trying to work from home at the same time. Sharing your kitchen table with your seven year old, while at the same time trying to look presentable for a video call and wondering whether...
How to study at home?
How to study at home for secondary students? In these uncertain times of coronavirus, with schools partially closed and families and young people self-isolating, this is the big question. At first, the prospect of an indefinite school holiday might sound exciting and...
Preparing your child for primary SATs
I’m sure I am not the only person who feels a mixture of relief and surprise that it is already March, and that we are only a few weeks away from the Easter break. Children are more than half way through the school year, and the summer term is just around the corner....
The benefits of mentoring for successful learning
When working with teachers I often ask them to describe a successful learner. Responses from schools across the country always include students who: Are well organised and able to plan systematically Ask questions and take risks to try things without fear of making...
The benefits of mentoring for GCSE and A’level students
I am often asked, what are the benefits of mentoring for GCSE and A'level students. Educating teenagers for over twenty years has taught me three universal truths about achievement: The first is that young people begin to flourish when they realise, and then develop...
Children’s Working Memory
My oldest friend recently came to stay, and we all enjoyed a wholesome weekend of country walks, chats, lots of food, and playing games with the children. Relishing her role as Godmother, my friend was excited to introduce my daughter to the joys of cats cradle, a...
Choosing your GCSE subjects
Choosing your GCSE subjects is a big decision when you are twelve or thirteen. Up until this point, what you have studied is prescribed, from the moment you walk through the school gates to the moment you leave. Suddenly you have to choose two or three subjects (only)...
Building confidence and motivation in learning
For many, returning to ‘normal life’ following a Christmas break can feel tough. My first working day involved a very early and dark journey to a school, and a dark journey home. Fortunately, the school was lovely and I had a great day, but there was much talk...
How much revision to do over Christmas?
Christmas is upon us! For students, two or three weeks of fun and excitement lie ahead. It is a chance to rest, celebrate with family and friends and…revise! This is especially true if you have a teenager who is sitting GCSEs or A levels in the summer, or have their...
Books to support KS2 maths at home
I consider myself to be incredibly lucky that I work in schools across the UK. Happily for me, I see more than my fair share of classrooms and am frequently inspired and impressed by the learning environments within primary schools. Often these settings use story...