Parents Worrying Over Children’s Exams

According to a survey, conducted by BBC radio 5 on parents feeling the stress and strain over a child’s revision and exam schedule is scary.

“This survey of 830 parents of 11 to 18-year-olds was carried out by ComRes for BBC Radio 5 live in March 2017”

“Nearly a quarter (24%) of British parents polled for 5 live said their own mental health had been affected by the pressure of their children’s exams.”

“A quarter also said they had often lost sleep worrying over children’s exams.”

“Two in five parents (42%) said not knowing how to help their children with revision made them feel as if they were “not good enough as parents”. 

“And nearly a third (31%) said they had offered their children money as an incentive to revise in the hope of boosting their grades.”

“The poll also found that more than half (52%), would like more help and advice on how to support their children through their revision.”

These were stats I saw this morning that almost brought tears to my eyes and had driven me to write this blog and a Facebook live broadcast. As a parent and a private tutor who sees over 100 students come through my tuition centres weekly, I couldn’t just not do anything about this to help alleviate some of these fears and anxiety that we might be experiencing.

Most of our children are going to be sitting an exam in a couple of months, May / June to be precise which will be used to determine their next steps in their educational life. I have seen children and even parents stressed out Year after year as they come into my tuition centre helpless at the very last minute. The problem as identified according to the stats above is that a lot of parents are helpless and the kids are as well. Most of them know they have to revise, they need to start to revise early enough to be able to do well, but they don’t know how. So, I will do my bit and share some steps to help.

Here are some important points to know when helping your child to revise and be ready for the exams. I know there are about 7/8 weeks left; a lot can still be covered over the coming weeks and most importantly you can take advantage of the Easter holidays.

Firstly, As you approach the Easter break you should take some time out to reach out to your child to find out how they are feeling about their forth coming exams and also use the opportunity to encourage them and honestly tell them how you are feeling – your fears, your anxieties and let them that you’re also as pressured as they are. Also, come to a mutual agreement of what should be done moving forward and continue to check up on each other as the weeks go on.

Secondly, create a system to identify what your child knows and what they may still be struggling with in each of their subjects. I always recommend my ‘Exam Traffic Light Revision system’

For each of your child’s subjects, get a list of all the topics and a good place to start is from the table of contents in the revision guide or the Exam specification that can be downloaded online.

Highlight the strongest topics in Green, the weaker ones in Red and the topics that your child feels in between about that is they understand some bits but not fully, they highlight it in Orange.

Then the priority would be to start revising the topics highlighted in Red and about 40% of your child’s time should be spend on these topic areas, then the next topic areas to be revised will be those highlighted in Orange and the Greens which your child is strong and solid on can be revisited at a time when your child is resting, your child should only be spending about 10% of revision time on these Green topic areas.

Watch the videos on my Facebook Page for more tips for exam revision or contact me for any assistance.

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