Who’s got Summer exam season on their mind?

…Probably not all that many of us. The sun has just come out in the northern hemisphere after months of grey days, and whilst the prospect of summer vacation might have just popped up in your consciousness with the changing weather, it’s pretty likely that not a lot of us have nailed down final exam prep plans that come before it. Unfortunately, the more time learners take to prepare, the more confident they might feel waking into those exam halls, so there’s never really been a better time to start pulling together some revision plans and hacks than today (unless we count yesterday or the day before).

So stick with us for our twelve top tips for boosting learning performance, revision planning hacks, and ways to beat the anxiety that sometimes creeps in around exam season when the learners in your household are chasing those all-important grades just before summer.

☀️ Make sure that all access arrangements have been made: if you or someone in your life has dyslexia or other conditions that might make a difference to reading skills, they could be entitled to a reader, extra time, or an EdTech provision like an ExamReader. Check it out with your educators long before the papers hit the desk – arrangements like this need to be made in advance.

☀️ Start building revision into a daily routine– it’s easier to form a habit if they do it around the same time of day too, especially if they struggle with executive dysfunction, as some people with dyslexia and ADHD do. Maybe just after breakfast, or after dinner. Try not to revise just before bed though – it could lead to difficulty ‘switching off’.

☀️ Explore ways to gamify learning, and add an interactive element to the revision that learners are doing – sometimes these kinds of games can act as a powerful memory trigger, as well as beating the anxiety that could be cropping up when it comes to tradition pen and paper revision strategies. Try quizzes or sorting exercises – and some learners will respond well to games where they have to move around.

☀️ Touch base with educators, especially SLD professionals and support staff if a learner is neurodiverse – although they’ll be very busy in the run up to exam time, they’re often best-placed to help out with any exam prep or revision problems that a student might be facing as they’ll probably have tried-and-tested strategies and a wealth of experience of things that work.

☀️ Create a revision plan. Many schools and colleges will have a syllabus or reading list somewhere on their system that they can easily send to you so that you can make sure that nothing is being missed out of your planning. And who doesn’t love making a colour-coded spreadsheet?

☀️ Shake up learning environments! Spring brings with it longer and lighter days, and learners don’t have to miss out on them just because it’s revision season. Take textbooks outside and try picnic-style, relaxed reading, or even encourage them to bring audiobooks and index card quizzes with them out to the pool. Not all revision has to be formal – sometimes just doing some reading, or talking about what they’re learning is a huge help in of itself.

☀️ Find the revision methods that work. Some people learn by talking to others, some by repeatedly copying things down, some by dictating and listening to things back on an audio recording. If extended reading is a struggle, shake things up and try something new – breaking the stress cycle is important, and adding additional pressure into the equation with extended reading can cause some students a lot of anxiety. And if a student does find that they learn best when they’re talking and discussing, open up the floor to group revision sessions, either in person or online, or get involved with the revision session yourself.

☀️ Make sure that anxiety and stress are being monitored. Regular mental health check-ins are important at the best of times, but during exam season, they’re especially important – and this goes doubly so if a student is neurodiverse, as they might be feeling the pressure more than most. Putting aside a few minutes a day to chat is important.

☀️ Don’t be afraid to take a day off, either. Students spend five days of the week in school, with homework after class hours, and many of them revising in evenings and over the weekend too. It’s an intense procedure and difficult to maintain focus if they’re feeling burnt out, so mental health breaks and getting out of the house are important.

☀️ Lean into assistive technology, if it helps. You can break down reading anxiety and support vocabulary growth with text-to-speech technology, as well as create positive support relationships with digital learning that they’ll take with them from school, to college and into the workplace.

☀️ Discuss the exam outcomes long before results day – do they need certain grades to progress somewhere? Do they have a contingency plan if their results aren’t as planned? Although it might seem like a bit of a downer, knowing that you’ve got a second option in place can actually make students feel less stressed when they go in to the exam, as it’s no longer a ‘make-or-break’ scenario.

☀️ Create visual aids and memory triggers in everyday environments – seeing a fact or formula every day is a great way to embed it in the mind so that it’s almost second nature by the exam. Can you devote one wall of their room to a blackboard or whiteboard – or how about post-it notes or wipeable marker on the mirror they use in the morning? Get creative and create posters, too – both the act of creating and the displaying them can help with information retention before the big day.

Good luck from all of us at SP – we’ll be bringing you more exam tips and tricks over the coming weeks.