My eldest son was in his final year of his GCSEs. At the end of the first year the teachers had predicted a D in Physics and an E in Business studies, with the rest C and above. People we knew, and my own nieces and nephews were coming out with all As / A*s …
I arranged a Math tutor once a week but it did more harm them good – my son would wait for the tutor before even opening his books !! And a tutor for each of the 9 subjects was an expense I couldn’t afford. I needed a plan … he needed to be completely prepared so he performed his very best…
Years from now I didn’t want him to say, or for me to feel, that he could have achieved more.
I didn’t have the time to work with him everyday – and didn’t know some of the work he was doing …. familiarity with the format and the questions was easily solved through practice, but the second problem was not knowing what to focus on …
… that’s when it dawned on me we needed to work smarter not harder … a skill which I had inadvertently perfected at University !!
During my 3 years I had discovered a simple approach which helped me perform to my very best without wasting effort and time – I realized I could use the same approach here with my son …
He was enrolled on 9 GCSEs; Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Maths, English Lang, English Literature, ICT, Arabic, and Business Studies. A truely daunting set of subjects – but he was interested in healthcare…. being a surgeon or a physician – my opinion was “dream on“ – but he was adamant – he had the potential to succeed but without a plan, without some guidance he simply didn’t know how… everytime he sat down to do some work he ended up wasting time on Youtube, Fortnite, PUBG and the like…
Attending an international school outside of the UK where teachers weren’t as committed also gave me nightmares… these teachers were kind of on an extended holiday so only stuck around for a couple of years – although even in the UK I heard standards aren’t quite what they were …
I knew he needed some structure – he needed a plan, with a target… an objective – I started looking at formalizing my approach and spent a few weeks conducting research on Google …
Too many websites with too many options – I wanted something simple for my son to follow
I decided to create my own plan – a plan of 7 simple steps which I am sharing with you – anyone can follow these steps to get them the highest grade they possibly can – A’s / A*s in my son’s case !!!
Bottom line is the predicted E became an A and the D,Cs, and Bs ended up as As/A*s. I doubt if all my children will manage this, but we as parents should be aiming to ensure our children achieve their very best.
