Category Archives: schools gcse maths results

How To Reduce Your Workload And Boost Results

I talked about the art of teaching without teaching philosophy in a previous post but how do you apply it in practice?

Before I offer you my suggestions, let me remind you of Pareto’s law. Pareto was an Italian economist and he said only 20% of your efforts contribute to 80% of your results. That means, if you are currently working 60 hours in your job, only 12 of those hours will have a direct impact on your student’s results. Thus, it makes sense to reduce some of the 48 hours that do not directly influence your student’s results.

Some of these hours cannot be reduced. For instance, suppose you teach five, one-hour lessons a day. This means you’ll spend 25 hours a week in the classroom. This time cannot be reduced as you have to be present during these lessons.

The rest of the time is spent on planning lessons and marking your student’s work. The latter, marking your student’s work, has the biggest drain on your time. Marking your student’s work is a tedious and time-consuming process. Even worse, it has no direct impact on your student’s results. As a matter of fact, it can hinder their progress as the student cannot see, first-hand, where they’re going wrong. It’s very important students identify their own mistakes so they can eliminate them going forward.

That’s why you must allow your students to mark their own work. Not only will it reduce your workload but it will boost results in the long run. You could outsource this activity to a PA (this is what the head of maths from my old high school does) but the issues with this is it’ll eat into your salary as you have to pay this assistant and again, students will not see where they’re going wrong.

When you’re looking for worksheets/exercises to give to your students, make sure they come with solutions too. Detailed solutions are not always ideal. Model solutions work best because it gives students a chance to figure out how they arrived at the final answer. Maths is all about critical thinking and the only way students develop this is if they ‘go through the struggle’ and think deeply about each answer. If the worksheet/exercise does not provide answers with it too, don’t use it.

You should set the worksheet/exercise in lesson. Go through 1 or 2 examples with the entire class and let the student work through the rest on their own, in silence. For homework, you would provide them with the detailed/model solutions and instruct the student to mark their own work and correct any questions they got wrong in class. In the following lesson, you will go through any last minute problems. Then, you simply repeat this process.

By allowing the students to mark their own work, you’ll instantly cut your workload by, at least, 25%. You may have to take in their work on the first 2 or 3 occasions to verify their marking but after a few lessons, you won’t have to take it in any longer. As long as you provide model solutions, student’s marking will be fairly accurate. The only thing you should do is make a note of their scores in an Excel spreadsheet. This will allow you to gauge their performance over time.

I would strongly advise that you create a Facebook group for your maths class outside of lesson. Your students will inevitably run into problems whilst they complete their homework and if there isn’t a platform to post their problems on, progress will stagnate. Ultimately, progress is made at home and not entirely at school.

Creating a Facebook group is simple; all you need to do is create a Facebook account, add all of your students as friends (the majority of kids are on Facebook these days) and invite them to join your group. This gives your class an opportunity to share their problems with their peers. I used to have a similar service when I was studying at university and it works very well. There is always a small group of students who outperform the rest of the class so you could let them answer your student’s queries on your behalf. Hence, reducing your workload even more.

There is a danger, however, with giving basic revision questions/exercises in lesson; student’s are not learning how to apply these principles in an exam context. You’ve probably heard your students say this a number of times before: “The questions in the textbook are straightforward but when it comes to the exam questions, it is a totally different story”. The reason why so many students underachieve in their maths exams is because they fail to see the link between maths concepts and exam-style questions. That’s why you’re better off giving past paper questions to your students from the outset.

I used to give basic revision questions to students I tutored in my local area but I’ve stopped this altogether. I only focus on past paper questions and exam technique because this will have a direct impact on their results and not necessarily basic revision/exercise questions. The great thing about past papers is they come with model solutions so you can give these to your students too (as homework).

Private schools follow a similar approach in their teaching; they focus solely on past paper questions and exam technique. That’s why they’re the best performing schools in the country. If you want your maths results to improve, what should you do? You copy somebody who is doing better than you. In this case, the private school approach works very well so you should do the same!

The other issue that drains your time is planning your lessons but what if I provided you with ready-made lesson plans? All you’d need to do is use them. Then you won’t have to spend any time on planning your lessons anymore. This is what my GCSE Maths For Schools program is all about. I provide students/teachers with a ready-made plan for them to follow. Teacher’s workloads are reduced whilst their students results improve – a win-win situation for both parties. A number of schools across the UK are using my program and they’ve already seen a boost in results. Why don’t you use it in your school as well? Visit the home page to find out how you can trial it in your school.

Why We Must Abolish The Target Grade System

If you want your school to achieve a GCSE maths pass rate of 90% one day, then you must remove the target grade system or at least make it oblivious to the students.

The target grade system does nothing but lowers a student’s expectations and creates a delimiting belief about their ability. Unless the student has a strong mindset (only a few have at that age), they will only achieve their target grade, at best. It’s unlikely for them to surpass their target grade. I feel it is wrong to dictate what a student can and cannot achieve. Students have the right to decide for themselves and strive for whatever grade they desire.

Believe it or not, one of my relatives was predicted to fail her GCSE maths. She was predicted to get an ‘F’ grade. How absurd! If you are predicted to fail, what do you think is going to happen? You are going to fail! In the end, she lived up to her expectation and failed her GCSE maths miserably. It was only until she shifted her mindset i.e. she knew she had to pass her GCSE maths in order to enter higher education, she passed her next GCSE maths exam with ease. Who was to blame for her predicament? The school was largely to blame for labelling her a ‘failure’ in the first place.

Students do no not know any better at that age. Once a target grade has been set for them, they’re almost convinced that, that’s the best grade they can achieve. It plays on their subconscious mind and that’s why they hit a plateau during their revision – they keep falling short of their target grade in mock papers and find it difficult to improve. They may achieve their target grade in the end but what if they could have achieved a much better grade in their final exam but it was their target grade that was holding them back? Thus, a target grade is merely a psychological barrier and once we lift it, results will improve dramatically.

When thoughts/ideas enter the subconscious, it becomes a big problem. Scientists have proven that whatever is stored in the subconscious will become a reality at some point in the future so if a target grade is continuously floating around in their subconscious mind, they will achieve that grade in the end, whatever happens. Is that all we want for our students? Don’t we want them to overachieve in their exams? If we do, then we have to do something about the target grade system.

In my GCSE Maths Revision Program, the first thing I address is target grades. I advise my students to drop their target grade altogether and strive for the 100% mark. This is followed by evidence of students achieving 100% in their modules after failing their GCSE maths in the past. Their confidence grows immediately after reading this section because they can see that passing their GCSE maths exam is not an impossibility. I guess this is the main reason why every student who has adopted my program in the past have gone on to boost their result by, at least, one whole letter grade.

Purdip B. from Birmingham is a great example of shifting one’s mindset in order to boost grades. After failing his GCSE maths on the first occasion, he came across my GCSE maths revision system. Here is what he said about it:

“The program designed by Jeevan summarise what you need to know for your exam by focusing on the key concepts. The resources are well written and take the complexity out of the topics covered. The shortcuts and tips are especially useful and I’m already reaping the benefits; I can answer exam questions far quicker than I previously did. I achieved a ‘C’ grade in the foundation-tier paper this summer (2015). I am not satisfied with just a ‘C’ grade so I’ve entered the higher-tier paper in November 2015, where I am aiming to get an ‘A’ grade overall. Before I came across Jeevan’s program, I would have been happy with just a ‘C’ grade at GCSE. I now want to aim for the best grade possible because I know I can do it. Thanks Jeevan for giving me the belief that I can do well in in this subject. I’m even considering A-Level Maths! That’s quite phenomenal for someone who failed their GCSE maths before!”

Purdip AQA GCSE Maths Result 2015

– Purdip B. Birmingham

With Purdip’s attitude, it was inevitable he was going to pass his GCSE maths resit with ease. That is why we need to change the mentality of our students if we ever want your school to achieve a GCSE maths pass rate of 90% one day. The only way we can do that is by, firstly, removing the target grade system.

Sadiya, from London, recently bought my GCSE Maths Revision System. She sent me this email the other day :

 


Click on the image above to expand it

Now you may think, striving for a ‘B’ or an ‘A’ maybe a little over optimistic for her considering that she’s failed her GCSE maths twice in the past. However, by removing this delimiting belief about her ability, she should do far better in her retake. Even if she strives for a ‘B’ or an ‘A’, there is a good chance she’ll pass her GCSE maths, at worst. That’s why, removing the target grade system and advising your students to aim for the best grades possible will boost results, overall.

Why not test this ideology in your school? Take two sets of similar ability. Set a target grade system in the higher set. In the lower set, remove the target grade system altogether. Advise the lower set to, instead, strive for the 100% score and no less. They should strive for better results with each new paper they take until they get the 100% mark. What you’ll find is the lower set, who were not set target grades to begin with, will outperform the higher set overall.

If you take part in this experiment, please share your results by leaving a reply on this blog post.