Although I’m a teacher, not a student, I’ve not stopped learning yet. This page is intended for colleagues to access for a range of methods, printables, ideas and software links that will hopefully help the students directly to learn more effectively. A lot of it is adapted from material I hand out myself. Versions written for the students themselves will be appearing soon(ish) on a related blog, stuff for students.

Completing the Chain

Although students know all kinds of things – mine often know more than me in some areas, such as sport and celebrity lifestyles, for example – we can safely assume that to start with, only the teacher knows all the facts that will be needed for an exam. At some point, through a long process that will probably include lessons, homework, practice questions, research, discussion and more, all students will have the facts in your notes. We can summarise this process as learning because in many ways, it doesn’t matter what the teacher does if it doesn’t get written down. Sadly, we can often safely ignore what a student hears but does not record.

Once they have the information, in more or less neatly presented notes, they’ll need to study it to ensure they know it thoroughly before being tested. This is the stage we call revision and is often done remarkably badly. Let’s assume that they know every last fact the night before the exam, after a long and careful, thorough revision programme.

There is one last obstacle. During an exam, even the best student can become distracted, nervous or careless. It is surprisingly easy, while stressed and rushed, to misread a question or fail to give a clear answer, even when you know it. This is the stage where good exam technique can be a real benefit.

Think of this sequence of events as a chain. If any link in the chain – learning, revision or exam technique – fails to work, then the student risks a poor result. It is not the teacher who has failed to perform, or even necessarily that they didn’t learn it or understand it at the time. To stop this happening, they must have a good set of notes, that allows effective revision, so you can use your knowledge carefully and accurately in the exam. Students will hopefully realise that making this happen is not the responsibility of their parents or their teacher.