Last Updated on 23 March 2025 by Colette
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Like lots of parents of 15 / 16 year olds, we are on GCSE countdown in our house. With less than two months until the main exam period starts and something like seven school weeks left, we are keen to make sure that Ben is working hard but also staying pretty relaxed – if you know Ben, you’ll know that the second part of that isn’t overly challenging, he doesn’t do stressed and actually quite enjoys the exams themselves. Keeping him focussed and revising effectively is probably the hardest part for him (and for us).
Ben has always been one of those kids who just pulls it out of the bag in an exam – which is of course a great trait to have but it does mean it has been hard to motivate him to revise. Until this year he has never really revised for anything and has usually done pretty well (you can see why he would find it hard to see the point in spending his time revising) however his mock results at Christmas were disappointing – on the plus side, he would be able to follow through his plans of going to Sixth Form with the results he got on his mocks, but they were definitely not where he wanted them to be – which was a bit of a shocker for him when he’d actually revised for them for the first time in his life and he thought they’d gone well.
Having spoken to his teachers at parents evening, what we realised was that he wasn’t revising far enough back or in enough detail. His Physics teacher explained that up until now he has mostly been tested on things that he has learned within the last 12 weeks or perhaps 6 months and he has been able to perform well in those tests from memory but now, when they are working on testing two years or more of content all at once, he’s losing the details and that’s where he needs to do the work to bring in the grades we know he’s capable of.
We have helped Ben to plan a revision timetable – focusing on filling in his existing commitments first – rugby, boxing, volunteering at Cubs, his new Explorers group and of course his Saturday job – before working out what time he has left to dedicate to revision. His life is really busy at the moment so sitting in his favourite hoodie, playing Xbox is coming quite a long way down the list – something he’s finding really hard to swallow but we just keep reminding him that it’s short term pain and come the end of June he’ll have loads of time for sitting on his backside and relaxing (though I’m hoping he’ll get his walking boots on and get some miles done in the fresh air too!).
I’m definitely finding it hard to get the balance right between supporting and nagging him – he’s generally pretty good at sticking to his timetable and getting some work done, though I don’t know how effective that work is as he’s a bit slapdash with his revision plans – I’m basically obsessed with him needing to do practice questions and, as someone who has always hated writing, he is obsessed with finding ways to avoid them. But, it’s not my revision and they’re not my exams. We can support and guide him as best we can, but at the end of the day it’s on him. His school have worked so hard to provide them with recourses and guidance, it’s up to him to choose to use them to make sure he’s all smiles on results day.
So for now, we’re keeping everything as normal as possible in terms of his various extra curricular activities but he does know that, depending on the results of last week’s mocks and how “on it” we feel he is, he might have to prioritise things and take a few weeks off Scouting to free up his evenings a bit for extra revision – his rugby season will have finished by the time his exams roll around but in the meantime the exercise, fresh air and time with his team-mates is really important in helping to give him some balance.
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I can predict this will be N in 2 years time. He drifts through exams and does ok but he’s on for 7s and his attitude to homework and doing the bare minimum drives me nuts and won’t get him what he’s capable of. I worry that his dad will promote helping on the farm over school work so I’m hoping to get him going to all the possible revision sessions that school runs which will help.