After completing their exams, most High School students find themselves in the midst of receiving feedback while eagerly (or perhaps not so eagerly) awaiting the release of their Term 2 reports.

This year, we have spent many hours in the weeks leading up to the exams preparing the students; explicitly teaching them how to devise a study timetable, how to manage their time, how to answer particular types of questions, practising many different exam questions,  how to manage their anxiety, how to receive feedback and how to effectively reflect on their exam performance so that the students can develop an improvement plan for their next round of exams.

After each exam block, as a staff, we reflect on the exam experience for the students and look for ways to better prepare them for the exams and to improve their learning. We are constantly reflecting on our processes to refine what we do, and our exam blocks continue to evolve and change.

It is important not to view the Term 2 and Term 4 exams in isolation but rather to view the Years 7–10 exams as part of a four-year process of gradual exposure to exams and incremental improvement so that by the time the students enter Year 11 they are well prepared to sit their senior exams. When discussing the HSC with students, I often use the analogy of competing in the Olympic games. Athletes train and prepare for at least four years before competing in the Olympics. The HSC is a six-year journey and the four years of Junior exams (Years 7–10) are important training and preparation years for the HSC. We don’t expect our Years 7 and 8 students to be masters of exams, instead we use these early years as necessary exam training years and building blocks for the future.

Parents are key partners in the exam process and have a huge influence on their child’s reaction to and performance in exams. Therefore, I thought it might be useful to provide parents with some useful tips that I have accumulated over many years of working alongside parents as they assist their children with preparing for their exams, receiving feedback and then reviewing the reports.

EXAMS

• My observations are that parental anxiety about exams is definitely on the increase and is having a seriously detrimental impact on students being able to put their exams into perspective and to perform to the best of their ability at that point in time. Try to control your own anxieties about exams and don’t share these with your child. If you are visibly anxious, then your child is more likely to be anxious about their exams. I have been really surprised this term hearing how anxious parents have been about the exams, particularly parents of students in Year 7. Starting with exams in Year 7 assists parents to learn to manage their own exam anxiety and get this under control. Parents, don’t stress over the Junior exams, save your stress for Year 12!
• Understand that the reason that we start with exam blocks in Year 7 is so that the students have five years of exam practise before Year 12 so that they are well prepared for their final exams. From Year 7 to Year 11 the exams incrementally become longer and more difficult as we “train” the students to become more skilled at completing exams while also learning strategies to reduce or alleviate their anxiety. Normalising and putting exams into perspective is very important. A poor exam result in the early years of High School will not determine success or failure in later life.
• Use eLY and the assessment notifications to guide your child’s study plan for the term. Become familiar with the assessment requirements for the term and in Terms 2 and 4 don’t accept the teen excuse “I have no homework” – there is always revision and study that can be done.
• Remember, these are not your exams and you are not sitting the exams. Don’t write your child’s study notes or their practise questions or essays for them. You should never complete your child’s homework or assessments for them. Support your child to write their own answers and learn to think for themselves. I worry about the over involvement of parents in the lives of some of the High School children as they are not learning to be independent.
• Don’t ask your child to ring you as soon as they step out of an exam for them to tell you how they have gone. I have been shocked this term by the number of students who, as soon as they stepped out of the exam room, immediately took our their mobile phones. When I asked them why they were on their phones, they told me their parent had instructed them to call immediately and provide an update on the exam. This type of behaviour really contributes to exam anxiety.

RECEIVING FEEDBACK

• Don’t focus on your child’s mark alone. As your child begins to receive their feedback, try to resist the urge for the first question you ask to be, “what mark did you get?” Instead, try to start with, “what feedback did you receive from your teacher?” The feedback they receive is far more important than a mark alone. Ask your child to identify for you what they think they need to do to improve. Encourage your child to attempt to re-answer the questions where they didn’t achieve as well as they would have liked and see if they can improve their initial answers and responses. This is true learning.
• Allow your child to take responsibility for their results and don’t fall into the trap of the blame game e.g. “we weren’t taught this information”, “my teacher is hopeless” etc.
• Try not to overreact to a single result as we need to put things into perspective. There will be times that students “bomb out” on an exam. Preparing for the HSC in Year 12 is a six-year process and it won’t always be plain sailing. Always focus on your child’s effort rather than the result they receive.
• Try not to get angry with your child about their exam results as this will deflect the attention away from their effort and performance and make the issue about you as a parent.
• Most importantly, be realistic about your child’s ability and accept your child for who they are. We all want great things for our children, but I deal with many stressed students whose parents’ expectations do not meet the reality of their child’s capabilities.

REPORTS

• When reports are released, sit down with your child and ask them to walk you through their report without you making judgement. Ask them:
  • Where they did well and why?
  • What are they proud of and why?
  • Where are they disappointed and why?
  • What study skills and strategies worked well for them?
  • How can they improve for next time?
• Sit with your child in the holidays and get them to think about specific things they are going to do to improve in their next exams. Saying that I am going to improve my results is too vague. Instead, try strategies such as starting to study for exams two weeks earlier next time, writing study notes out each evening when they get home, and studying for another 15-30 minutes each evening. Get your child to set realistic and achievable goals, for example:
  • to make sure that they attempt every question
  • to complete the exam in the allotted time
  • if a child achieves 65% in this exam to aim to get 70% next time.

• In your child’s report, focus on the effort they are putting in and their classroom behaviour. Encourage your child to focus in class, to not be distracted by friends, and to truly utilise and maximise their learning time so that they will have a greater chance of improving their exam results.

When school and home partner together, each child has a far greater chance of achieving their potential and enjoying their school experience. Over the past few weeks, I have been so incredibly impressed by the increased focus and the improved behaviour of the students in many classes as they have taken their study and their exams so seriously. I have loved seeing the students working collaboratively, testing each other, comparing and sharing study notes and teaching one another. It has been very rewarding to listen to the students’ conversations and discussions about their learning, and to hear them genuinely encouraging and supporting one another to try their hardest and to do their very best. We are definitely experiencing a cultural change as students begin to understand the importance and value of metacognition, as they reflect and evaluate their learning and understand that learning is a process and that exams themselves are only one part of it.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Hemphill is the Head of High School at Moriah College in Queens Park, NSW.