Make the Plan Before You Need the Plan

Schools spend a great deal of time preparing students for exams.

There are revision sessions, practice papers, study skills and reminders about what students need to do as exams get closer.

Parents are often expected to support much of this at home.

But how much preparation do we give them to do that?

We can send home revision timetables, exam dates and information about what students should be doing. That is useful.

Supporting a young person through exam pressure, however, can involve much more than knowing when the exams are and encouraging them to revise.

Parents may find themselves dealing with worry, frustration, lack of motivation, disrupted sleep or a young person who suddenly seems unable to cope with something they were managing perfectly well a few weeks earlier.

If we know that is likely to happen, perhaps we should be helping parents prepare for it before it does happen

Parents know their young people

Schools have an important role in exam preparation, but parents have something we do not.

They know their young person outside school.

They may notice the small changes that tell them pressure is beginning to build. They know their usual patterns of behaviour and communication, and they often have far more opportunities than we do to notice when something is changing.

That makes parents an important part of exam preparation.

But knowing your young person does not automatically mean knowing how best to support them when they are under pressure.

Our instinct as adults is often to solve the problem.

You just need to...

Have you tried...?

When I did my exams...

All well meant, and sometimes the advice may be useful.

At other times, a young person may need something quite different.

This is where I think schools can help.

Do not wait until exam season

We often increase communication with parents as exams get closer.

By then, everybody is under more pressure.

There is much more value in beginning earlier, when there is still time for parents to think about how they can support their young person rather than simply reacting when something goes wrong.

To help parents prepare we might give them some simple things to consider, such as:

What might pressure look like for their young person?

How might they recognise that something is beginning to change?

When might advice be useful and when might listening be more helpful?

What could they encourage their young person to try now, so they are not searching for solutions for the first time when they are already overwhelmed?

Parents do not need to become counsellors or experts in exam stress.

What they need is useful information, realistic expectations and practical ways to help.

Make the plan before you need the plan

One of the ideas I come back to regularly is: Make the plan before you need the plan.

We often apply that to students.

If a young person knows that pressure can make their thoughts race, for example, they can begin exploring what helps them slow things down before they are sitting outside an exam room struggling to think clearly.

The same principle applies to the adults supporting them.

If parents have already thought about what exam pressure might look like, how their young person tends to respond and what support might be helpful, they are not starting from scratch when a difficult moment arrives.

Schools can help make that happen.

It might be through a parent session, information sent home, conversations at school or practical resources that give families something useful to work with.

The important thing is to do it early enough for it to make a difference.

October gives us that opportunity

It gives us time.

Time to involve parents before the pressure builds.

Time to help them understand some of the challenges  their young person may experience.

Time for families to find out what helps - and what does not.

And time for some of those conversations and approaches to become familiar.

Then, when exams do begin to feel much closer, parents are not suddenly being asked to take on a support role they have had no preparation for.

We prepare students because we know preparation matters.

Perhaps we should be thinking about how well we prepare the people supporting them at home too.

Make the plan before you need the plan.

Exam Support at Home gives schools a ready-to-use way to help parents understand and support their young person through exam preparation.

Rather than waiting until exam pressure has already built, it can be used to begin those conversations earlier and give parents practical support they can use at home.

Find out more about Exam Support at Home   https://www.geraldinejozefiak.com/exam-support-at-home