How to ensure that your child catches up after school closures
Our guest blogger is Kit Betts-Masters, Director of Learning Science at Abbeyfield School in Northampton, and the science teacher behind “Gorilla Physics”, a YouTube channel dedicated to helping students get the top grade in their exams. Kit has used Tassomai in his school since 2017 and is a big fan of the program so it made sense for us to support his channel and to invite him to share some tips for exam success.
First, I’ll say that our school leaders and teachers will be working incredibly hard to check that there are no gaps in students’ knowledge and understanding following the school closures in 2020.
But it’s totally natural that you want some reassurance and you want to find a way to ensure that your son or daughter has covered everything and is feeling confident going into the exams.
They need a way to make sure that they’ve checked every objective and that they have mastered all the skills that they will need to show in those exams. The best way to do this is self-quizzing.
Watch the latest Gorilla Physics video, supported by Tassomai.
There are loads of different ways that you can do self-quizzing. For example, many students love to write out notes, many students love to make and use flash cards. These methods are totally fine if you have loads and loads of time. I don’t want to panic anyone, because this year group does have enough time to catch up, but they won’t have a surplus of time!
The problem is that so much time goes into making those things that there’s not much time left to actually use them to do self-quizzing. And the research shows that it’s the self-quizzing that is the most effective form of revision, not the making of the materials!
That’s where a program like Tassomai can help…
Your son or daughter can see Tassomai as a pre-made set of flash cards, or a pre-made set of retrieval practise questions. In just 10 minutes they can cover around 50 questions which is a good chunk of the specification. They can access the app at any time on their phone, and it will become a great habit to “get their daily goal” in those spare ten minutes waiting for a bus.
For you as a parent you can see it as an alternative to a revision guide, but it’s way more engaging and it actively adapts to the student’s strengths and weaknesses.
Most importantly though they’ll be able to see through features like the Tassomai Tree exactly which areas of the specification they find most difficult. And this means they can spend more time on those bits of the specification that are the highest priorities for them.
I really recommend Tassomai because it will allow you to ensure that your son or daughter is actively revising. You can remind them, just when they’re casually using their phone, that they can get their daily goal in 10 minutes. Do that over the course of a few weeks and they’ll start to feel much more confident about the material in their GCSEs.
For me as a teacher, and as a head of science, I want to know that my students are spending more time on the areas that they are weakest. The features of Tassomai are perfect for enabling them to do that.
Kit Betts-Masters
@gorillaphysics on Twitter