I've been breaking my back, I ain't givin' it up (Split Enz)

With only a handful of classes left now until the seniors leave on their study break for the external exams, I thought they'd probably benefit from some advice from their peers.

I'm going to show these to my senior students and see what they reckon. I'll report back on their thoughts.

Don't know much trigonometry (Sam Cooke)

Photo by Akshay Chauhan on Unsplash

My third deep dive into past posts regarding revision for exams.

3 NCEA External exams are imminent.

This means three things to teachers and invigilators the world over.

One - revision sessions for the exams



Two - Exam supervisions



and Three - a seemingly endless marking grind (reading the same stuff over and over again makes my brain hurt).

How did it come to this?



Ha ha - oh yeah, I forgot!

You don't want to flunk like a fool (revisited) (Loudon Wainwright)

Time to revisit a few old posts on this topic. The first I wrote in 2013 when I was working at Woodford House. The second is from 2017 when I was at OneSchool Global. I think they are still relevant for my students at Hastings Boys' in 2025.

Number 1

Exam revision time is a challenge in so many ways.

To avoid getting into a Mr. Bean examination scenario...

...there are many study tips out there and really the only decent two are (apart from learning by osmosis with the book placed under your pillow at night) - be active, not passive in your approach and create a study timetable to cover all aspects/all subjects and when the exams are on.

That means rewriting stuff and rereading primary sources (texts), not glancing over notes or pretending to engage in revising things or being distracted by social media.

The girls that I am teaching run the full continuum from fully motivated (redoing/ improving essays and answering textual questions, then getting my feedback) to doing zip zilch nothing (sitting on a computer looking at Spotify for songs to download). Thankfully only one or two in that last category, so most of them are in between those two extremes.

Startling revelation 1: some students don't seem to want to improve. They are unmotivated to do well in external exams for whatever reason.

Startling revelation 2: some students who want to improve are difficult to help. When I've suggested on a couple of occasions to individuals that they do something more focused than they are engaged in they have reacted negatively.  

I get it - revision is an individual thing but teachers are experienced in sitting/setting exams and preparing students for exams.

All part of being a teenager I guess.

NCEA provides some challenges too - students have different strengths and weaknesses in the different external standards so for focused revision they need to have individual programmes - tough to work through as a teacher but great differentiated learning.

So - back to motivation. I came across this nifty talk about what motivates people and found myself nodding along. I can also vouch for the message as the blog can attest - bonus schemes (yes - you, Cognition Education), DO NOT WORK!!!!!!

Number 2

The revision trick is all about focus. Qui Gon-Jinn's phrase is overused by me, I know, but it's so apt: your focus determines your reality.

To help focus I offer these great ideas from an Edutopia article on 'brain breaks'.

I've heard our students use this term but they regard it as a break from study and not a sharpening of their focus.

There are some great activities in the article. Read it! What have you got to lose? And you could gain some focus. 

It's within your grasp!

Bright eyes, burning like fire (Art Garfunkel)

Photo by Ashe Walker on Unsplash

Term four is the runt of the litter, especially for senior students. In my three NCEA classes. all of the internal work is done and dusted, and so, for two and a bit weeks, we are revising work done much earlier in the year for the exams.

For two of my classes that involves rereading the novel we studied at the start of the year (which, for me and the boys, feels like 2007). I can't trust that the boys actually completed the reading first time around. Thankfully, those two novels are relatively short ones and in Punching the Air - a quick read.

[My Year 13 have had constant reinforcement of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest throughout the year so rereading it isn't needed.]

Going back to the source is key. I can pause on key quotes and we can discuss themes and characters again with a greater degree of understanding.

It's a decent challenge though, because many of the boys have already decided to switch off from externals. That's okay, I get it, so I need to bring more of the energy and enthusiasm to the party.

We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us (Lucy Maud Montgomery)

Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash

With increased birthdays, comes wisdom. The kind of wisdom that says - students need to make mistakes - just as did our own children, and just as we all did in our own youth.

Much of what we learn, we learn by ourselves. We learn so much about ourselves and we improve by making our own mistakes.

As a young teacher I made many mistakes (some even when my superiors were observing me teach) and now, as a teacher with over 40 years experience, I still make many mistakes. Long may that happen.

Because, it is an absolute necessity.  As a teacher, I have to have that space to experiment, fail, and learn.