Do you have GCSE lesson blues?

Working as a teacher, you might think that you’re the only one who hates the GCSE study preparation period, but we’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. While students look forward to a time with no lessons, they quickly realise how boring studying for GCSEs can be. Particularly if there is no class structure.

The problem here, of course, is that students become less engaged, passive studying becomes more common, and success in the examinations is less likely. You can change this. You can beat those GCSE lesson blues, providing active ways students can learn that are fun and engaging for both you and your class.

Up And At ‘Em

Whoever said physical education wasn’t important? Studies have shown that cognitive ability and indeed memory, can be improved by keeping active. This means that it may not be the best idea to sit the kids down in their chairs for hours, not speaking and staring at their textbooks. Instead, you can look into ways to get them on their feet and active while still learning at the same time. How do you do this? Well, there are lots of possibilities. You could create a game like musical chairs where children have to answer a question to claim their chair in a certain time limit. Or, you can think about heading down to the sports hall and dividing the class into two teams. Each team will take shots, and whenever someone misses, they have to answer a maths question to still get the point.

There are countless possibilities on how to make revision literally more active if you set your mind to it.

Put Your Students In The Driver’s Seat

What about making the students the teacher for a change? In doing this, you will be able to show your students a new perspective on studying, once again allowing them to engage in an active way. One possibility would be sending your pupils into a lower class to teach. To succeed here, students will need to be completely on top of their studies. Provide them with a couple of weeks notice and offer prizes for the best teachers to make sure that they are motivated to perform. Or, a simpler option might be getting one class to write the revision notes or guide for another and vice versa.

Avoid All Work And No Play

Finally, it is important that you make sure pupils are taking time off from their studies. Revising non-stop can potentially be just as damaging as never studying at all. You could set students homework, like watching a film at the cinema, or even arrange fun and games inside the classroom. Classics like heads down, thumbs up and kahoot are popular with GCSE students who are stressed about their exams. You should do this if you know that there are students in your class who have a lot of responsibilities outside of studying and will need help finding time off. You can even arrange weekend activities, bringing the whole class together for fun and games, to make sure that children are getting the rest from revising that they deserve.

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