Don't get spooked by mock exams!
Halloween may be just around the corner, but the scariest thing about this time of year for many parents - and students themselves, is mock exams! Tassomai founder Murray’s top tip for anxious mums and dads…. don’t panic! Take a hands off approach and treat mock exams as a learning experience that will help your child prepare for the real thing.
It’s nearly upon us… the time you’ve been dreading for almost sixteen years… MOCK EXAMS! If you’re like most parents, you’re probably more worried about them than your child. Isn’t it infuriating that they don’t want to revise as hard as you think they should!?
I’m a bit ambivalent about mocks - they can be a great opportunity to help you plan for the real thing, but they’re often over-emphasised to the extent that they can do more harm than good.
While generally mocks are a good indicator of how you’ll do - and in some cases might have consequences for students’ options next year (in which case you should take them very seriously) - in most cases they’re more useful as a learning experience and as a motivator for the real thing. So here are my top tips for parents vicariously preparing for their child’s mock exams:
Don’t panic
They are not the real thing. The results don’t go on their permanent record. A little underachievement now could be the motivation your child needs to put in the real effort in the spring. Or it could be the justification for locking them in the house for the next 4 months ;-).
Watch and learn
Rather than battling with your child about revision, here’s a chance to give them responsibility and accountability...
Tell them that you’ll be hands-off - you’ll be there if they need you, but you won’t nag. But you will be watching… Talk to them regularly and frequently about what they’ve looked at today, what they’ve practised (was it quizzing, writing flashcards, doing practice papers, or reading - or nothing?). And then write it all down in a secret log!
When their results come out, you can have a serious chat about what went well and what didn’t, and you can use your record of their approach to have a constructive, collaborative discussion about how revision should go for the real thing.
Giving them agency means that, when you make a real plan for revision, it’s far likelier to stick.
Think of Wimbledon
Those tennis players spend all year travelling the world and playing on hard courts. Then for two weeks in the summer, they have to play on a grass court, outdoors, where the wind swirls and the ball doesn’t bounce, and the whole world watches and judges. The biggest event of the sporting calendar - the one everyone cares about - is played under different conditions, and, in many ways, is testing something completely different from the rest of their season.
That’s like your child - all year in controlled learning circumstances, with weekly homework that relates to what they were just taught, quick feedback, 40-minute lessons, everything low-stakes. Then suddenly they have a 6-week slog of 2-hour exams in silence with huge pressure and consequence.
The mock exams are like Eastborne, or Queens - those smaller grass-court tournaments that nobody cares much about. Those pros get a feel for the conditions and acclimatise to the challenge. They take part, they have a bit of fun, they try their best, but what they’re really doing is figuring out what they need to fix in time for the real test two weeks later.
If you let your child prepare for their mocks and you watch and learn, then you can be like the tennis coach coach helping the player analyse and practise for the real thing.
Take it all in your stride
Mocks can go brilliantly; they can go horribly. Don’t read too much into it - sometimes the mocks are set hard to scare the students, sometimes they’re set to give a confidence boost.
The danger is to panic about poor results and give up, or to be complacent following a good mock and put your feet up. There’s a great piece of research referred to as the Ebbinhaus Forgetting Curve which describes exactly how, if you don’t think about or practice something regularly, your likelihood of remembering it later diminishes over time. Although that seems obvious, it’s amazing to see how few people keep that practice going and keep every plate spinning.
So keep it all going: a few minutes’ quizzing each day have a colossal effect. Whatever the results in the mocks, scores will improve with a measured, sustainable routine of keeping all that knowledge in practice.
Following this approach with your child will help you support them in a way that will stick, and see them through to the big event with the right mindset, ready to do their best.