GCSE and A-Level exams are looming and with it, parents and students alike will be looking for revision strategies that will work for them and help prepare them for their exams. As a former GCSE teacher, I have written previously on how to revise and I always say that practise questions are the key to success. Many teenagers also need support in planning their revision sessions, learning how to take notes from a textbook and this is where Study Buddy becomes invaluable.
What is Study Buddy?
The Study Buddy is the brainchild of dad Nathan McGurl who developed the system when his own son Jake was going through GCSEs. Nathan wanted to create a tool that really goes back to basics. The system is designed to provide visibility, involving the whole family in supporting their teen to balance his or her time positively.
Central to The Study Buddy approach is the idea of the parent coach: helping young people to make sense of daunting tasks by breaking them down, but allowing them to take control of the process. Whilst developed primarily as an exam revision aid, McGurl believes the principles of The Study Buddy can be adapted to a variety of life situations and is keen to see more of an emphasis on promoting a positive study-life balance for young people.
Revision So Far
Many people have commented that they either feel sorry for our children for having two teacher parents or that are children will obviously benefit from our expertise. Neither is true in reality.
Having a parent who is a teacher can be useful, we understand the syllabuses, we know when to get exams remarked as we did after Chloe’s results were on the grade boundary – you can read about that in the post GCSE exam success, value added and getting a remark. and we have vast amounts of experience working with teenagers. Yet the downside is teaching your own teenagers is really hard. You are emotionally involved and they answer back like they never would in the classroom setting!
So far revision isn’t going especially well in our house, Dylan is a reluctant student and not very self-motivated yet. This has caused some tensions as I just expected him to crack on and study as his sister did a few years back. But my children are chalk and cheese in this respect. Chloe worked her socks off and spent hours studying. She had post-it notes, mindmaps and revision notes plastered all around her room. Dylan’s approach is less methodical and although he has a desire to do well, it doesn’t translate to putting the hours in.
I had turned into a mum moaning at him to study, constantly asking the same questions and he responded by mostly ignoring me and trying to dodge revision. It was a source of conflict and neither of us were happy having the same daily conversations.
A Study Buddy Demo
After hearing about the Study Buddy I was intrigued and then discovered that Nathan was based not too far from us and he asked if we would like to put the Study Buddy through its paces.
The Study Buddy focusses on revision strategy and organisation, not content, Nathan does not come from a teaching background and the methodology is about how to prepare and how to organise revision.
The Study Buddy system revolves around a large wipeable board with the days of the week printed onto it along with hourly chunks of time. The next part is really clever and unique and this is what makes this vastly different from what I have seen before.
When you purchase the Study Buddy system you notify them of the exam boards and specs that are being studied, right down to which modules you are studying. The syllabuses are then broken down into each topic taught. Students receive magnetic cards with every single topic area printed on them for every subject.
How to use the board
At the weekend you plan the week ahead. Block out school hours, block out after school activities like football, block out a regular mealtime and anything else that is important to you.
Then with the remaining hours plan your revision, pop the cards in the one hour slots, ensuring that you are getting a mix across subjects. At the end of the week is a wrap up session where you along with your parent reflects on the week and what has gone well. This is the coaching part – and it is really important to have this conversation.
Once the week has been completed, students look at the cards and move them into two places, either a done section or if they need to revisit the learning they put it back to the to do pile.
Our thoughts on Study Buddy
Dylan and I loved this simple visual approach. The cards are a reminder of how much there is to be done, yet it makes it manageable. I also liked how it ensures the whole curriculum is covered as it is easy to fall into the trap of revising the same thing over, focussing on what you like and ignoring the challenging or hard areas.
We also thought it was inspiring to give that control back and rebalance our relationship.
One word of warning is that it isn’t a magical cure and you all need to buy into it. For Dylan this approach could be just what he needs, he likes routine and knowing what is happening. He doesn’t do spontaneity in his day to day life, he is creature of habit and this planning ahead could work wonders. He also seemed keen and liked the approach.
A few days into using the Study Buddy
It has all started well, Dylan set up his board for the week ahead and discussed with me how many hours revision he will be doing this week. I managed to talk him up another couple of hours and left him to reorganise the cards. I was hopeful that Dylan would just get on with it without me mentioning anything – as that is the point of it – to reduce conflict and let the student take control.
I had to really focus on biting my tongue and not mentioning revision and to my relief, Dylan took control and stuck to his plan. All I did was praise him at the end as he was packing away. During his revision, I didn’t hover around or ask him what he was doing.
I will update this post in a couple of weeks but wanted to get this initial post live as time is ticking and if you have a reluctant learner then you might need to read this now as exams are only about 2 and half months away and time is of the essence.
Summary
The Study Buddy is a great system which is working for us. There is currently an offer on the bundle we received which provides everything you need to get going quickly. And at 20% off of the cost of the separate items! The complete package is just £88.50 and you can find out more by visiting the Study Buddy website.
Your bespoke GCSE revision bundle contains:
- The Buddy Board
- Up to 10 GCSE course sets
- Dry wipe pens
- The Digital Tracker.
That’s the organisation under control but what about how to revise?
The most beneficial way to revise is by completing past papers and marking them using the mark scheme. The exam boards have past papers on their websites – it is a valuable resource that is readily available for all, you just need to know which exam board and specification are being studied. This information can be found on the student’s exam entries, school websites or by asking the class teacher.
I have written some posts previously on how to revision strategies including
My favourite resources are past papers and also the CPG revision books which are available from Amazon. These subject specific revision cards are also great and another way I can support his revision by asking the right questions. We are using the Geography cards and the English ones the most.
I hope this blog post provides some support with revision strategies and gives direction on how to support your teenager through their GCSE exams.
