News & Blogs

What year groups are you preparing for exams?

This year I am preparing year 13 English Literature students for their A Level English Literature exams, Y13 Media students their A level Media exams and Y11 for their GCSE’s in English Language and English Literature.

What strategies are you using in lessons?

As well as focusing all of my lessons around an exam question, I am prioritising retrieval and modelling as a strategy in my lessons. Typically, in my Y11 lessons, we begin with a retrieval grid focusing on questions from across the whole two courses, Language and Literature. These questions usually set a purposeful atmosphere at the start of each lesson and students are used to being challenged and having to build on their initial response. This week, we have been preparing students for the complete Paper 2 English Literature exam where they have 2 hours 15 minutes to respond to a question on An Inspector Calls, Power and Conflict Poetry and Unseen poetry. I constantly remind students what the exam paper looks like by making them look at their copy and to consider the style of questions on the paper. Familiarity with the physical exam paper will increase their confidence.

When I model planning of a response, I start by talking through a question asking:

1) What is the question actually asking me to do? What are my points in answer to this question

2) How does the writer show these ideas – methods used by the writer

3) Why – what are the big ideas the writer is emphasising. What wider context does this link to?

Students then have 5 minutes speed planning before we feedback ideas together.

We will then share this planning together and students are encouraged to either write an introduction, sophisticated topic sentences, a paragraph or in the next lesson, a full timed response. I will model first of all and then ask students to do the same. At this point, building students’ writing stamina as much as possible is crucial. As we get nearer to the exam, I will reduce modelling and ask students to plan and respond to questions independently.

What strategies do you use to support homework/independent revision?

I have specific revision resources for each part of the exam. Students have access to these on Class charts but also physical copies as well. In addition to this, students have specific revision activities they can complete, using these strategies. Each activity is approximately 20 minutes long and helps to break revision down for students. Finally, students are constantly reminded that when they are revising, to have an exam paper in front of them and to think how they might apply the revised content in relation to an exam question.

Top Tip

Try to start every lesson with retrieval and make sure you have a few questions you know everyone can access. If students feel they know the answers, this will go a long way in boosting their confidence.