What messages do we give to students about Exams, Learning and Achievement?
The tone and content of what we say to students about learning in KS4 and 5 makes a difference to student and staff wellbeing, confidence and performance. It’s important that our messages are thoughtful, measured and consistent. Therefore, please consider the following when talking to students individually or collectively.
Aim for messages and a tone which is realistic and reassuring.
Do:
- Be positive, optimistic and hopeful about the experience – tell students that the courses are worthwhile and the content interesting, they are in a good school, that they have every chance to be successful here, that we will support them.
- Keep things in perspective – exams shouldn't be presented as the most important part of students’ lives - they shouldn't be part of every assembly, lesson or interaction.
- Promote and model gratitude and appreciation – thank students and staff regularly, and prompt students to think about what they have, as well as what they want to get.
- Promote effort and hard work – recognising that in the main students do work hard and are doing the right things.
- Embrace failure as an essential part of learning. Tell students that they should be getting things wrong in class, that mocks should be hard, and that managing emotional responses to failure is a tricky but very helpful life skill.
- Acknowledge struggle – we know that KS4 and 5 courses are challenging and lots can go wrong: procrastination, disorganisation, misunderstanding, distraction etc. All of these things are common and normal aspects of being a student. Our message is that students should not feel bad about themselves when they display these tendencies - we don't see them as innate character faults. However, if they are getting in the way of learning, students can and should learn to manage and improve them. If a student is disorganised, for example, that’s pretty common; we won't judge them for it, but we teach and encourage them to overcome it.
- Promote healthy lifestyles – socialising, sport, not regularly working until late at night. Be explicit about the need to work sensibly and take regular breaks.
- Talk about learning, not grades. Make it clear that all adults in the school value all the subjects that we teach; that they are all valuable and interesting in their own right.
Avoid:
- Over-dramatising / scare-mongering: ‘this is literally the most important year of your life’, ‘if you don’t pass your GCSE you won’t get a job’, 'these exams are incredibly difficult'.
- Excessive focus on comparison and competition: ‘you are up against the rest of Oxford / the school /the country in getting these grades’, ‘others are working harder or doing better than you’. There may be a place for some competition of course - but generally adolescents are quick enough to compare themselves with others; they don't need us to do it for them.
- Telling students who are already working hard that they need to work harder – always talk to groups about hard work with the note that ‘of course most of you are working really hard already’. Where individual students are not doing what they need to, we will know this through PR data and will intervene with them.
- Express anxiety about new ‘harder’ exams. Students need to feel that we know what we are doing, so avoid ‘you are guinea pigs for new exams’, ‘even the teachers don’t know the exam very well’.
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