Timetables for every grade are on the board and went home on paper. For grade ten, the plan matters more than the hours, and here is what we tell every family.
The timetables for this term's examinations are on the board by the gate, on this site, and went home on paper with every child yesterday. Check the paper against the board a week before, because a room occasionally changes and the board is what is right.
For grades one to eight, there is very little a family needs to do beyond the ordinary: sleep, breakfast, and the child having their own stationery rather than borrowing. Examinations at those grades are there to tell the teachers what has not landed, and a child who is anxious about them has usually been made anxious by an adult.
Grade ten is different and this is what we tell every family.
First, the practice examinations matter more than the term examinations. Three of them are sat in the hall under real conditions, marked by the teachers against the real schemes, and returned with a breakdown by topic. That breakdown is the useful part. A total of fifty eight says nothing; knowing that most of the lost marks came from two topics is a plan for the month.
Second, the last six weeks should not be spent doing whole past papers in order. It feels like hard work and it is the least efficient thing available. Two hours of paper tests forty topics a child mostly knows already. Better: fifteen questions in a row on the weakest topic, then the next one. Every child on the grade ten programme gets a written plan for those six weeks from their class teacher, built off the breakdowns.
Third, more hours in the last fortnight rarely helps. Families ask us for extra periods in that stretch and we usually say no, because a child at the limit of what they can absorb does not absorb more by sitting longer. The evening before a paper is worth more asleep than at a desk.
Fourth, come and ask. The Wednesday parent hour exists for this, and the subject teachers are in school in the examination weeks with fewer lessons than usual, which makes it the easiest fortnight of the year to get half an hour with one.
