Students across the country are currently sitting their GCSEs and A-Level exams. For some students, this is their first time sitting actual exams that haven't been impacted by the immediate effects of covid.

In the past few years, students have missed the chance to sit exams altogether, with coursework relied upon for grades. 

At Glossopdale Sixth Form, teachers Fiounla Flaherty and Daniel Peate explained some of the challenges that the pandemic has brought to schools. 

Fiounla said: “ in terms of students’ mental health and work ethic, I don't think we have fully recovered from the effects of the pandemic.”. Dan agrees, stating: "We’re finding that we are having to work harder than ever to prepare the students, our current cohort of year 13’s have not sat formal external exams which means they haven’t had the preparation that they perhaps would have had in their GCSEs in terms of revision and the routine of exam days.” 

A national study shows that 69% of students described their mental health as poor now that they are back at school after the pandemic. This is still evident, Dan adding: “the mental health support that we offer has really ramped up, we’re seeing more and more students that just struggle day to day and we have lots of strategies in place to make sure they are successful as they can be”.

Fiounla and Dan continue to offer considerable support and reassurance to students, but say much of the feedback from the current exams is positive. 

"After the students have sat some of their exams, they say how pleased they are with themselves and they realise that they can achieve what they set out to and also they realise the questions are what they have been doing in lessons, there is no surprises.” 

Revision can be challenging for some but useful techniques include splitting your day into three - where you should only revise in two of those three sections, therefore you are rewarding yourself with that free section of your day. Another talked about method is the ‘magic hour’ where you do 20 minutes where you’re reading, 20 minutes where you're doing those notes in a different format like flash cards and finally, 20 minutes where you are testing yourself, you will get more done as you divide your time and not overfacing yourself. 

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