It’s mock time!

At some point in the next couple of weeks, or possibly already, year 11 will start their first round of mocks. Before I go any further, I should say the majority of my experience was in a 11-16 school, so if you also have year 12/13 mocks then I feel for you, and particularly your marking load. Solidarity, and all the tea¹ in the world.

Mock exams are a weird time in a school. Year 11 go missing from lessons for 2-3 weeks, and you have maybe half classes when you do see them. This makes moving forward with the scheme of work really difficult and impractical, so we roll out the dreaded ‘revision lesson’.

This goes something like this: you tell the students, at least a day in advance they have to bring revision material as there will only be ten of them in the next lesson. You warn them if they don’t, you will have things ready for them for your subject (even if they have already done your mock!). Students all nod and say yes, and then promptly forget faster than a goldfish with memory problems².

Sometimes they all remember and turn up with work and revision to do. Excellent, you think, I can now mark some of my mocks. Nope, this is wrong, and more than a little deluded, unless you teach like its the 1970s. Invariably the class will be silent for about a nano-second or less and then realise that

a) they can’t be arsed and discussing Celebratory Traitors³ is much more important, and

b) they don’t actually know how to revise.

Point b is far more important here, as every teacher in the country has a degree (or equivalent) and so know how to revise, how to take on knowledge and, most importantly how to regurgitate it in exam situations, under pressure. Before anybody points out the bleeding obvious, we do actually try to teach revision skills and techniques, but there’s a small problem with that.

Everyone works in different ways. Everyone’s memories work differently. For example – I learn best by doing, so I would do lots of past papers, look up answers and how to do it or ask for help if I couldn’t figure it out. I have friends who need to read things, and of course there are those annoying people who only have to see it once and can remember it for eternity⁴. I can work to music, my wife cannot. And so on, and so on. This makes any lesson on study skills difficult to deliver, but of course we need to try.

I remember a parents evening a long time ago, where I was telling a father and daughter she needed a quiet space to work in the evenings. He said she could work at the kitchen table, and she replied that he was always watching telly in there. His response?

“I’ll turn it down.” Dad of the year, right there.

There are three types of student at this point in the year too. First are the ones who work really hard, all the time, are the ones you can say unironically are “a pleasure to teach”. You can spot these a mile off because their uniform is perfect and they are stressed beyond belief. Second type are the ones who started revising and want to know if they can have their marks yet⁵. By starting revising, they mean they looked at their notes last night. Type three are the ones who say “I just wanted to know how I’d do without any effort. Then it can only get better, right?”. Well, that’s sound reasoning, but in my experience, this student’s idea of working is to be like student type two and revise the night before.

I’ll save SLT now on your back because results aren’t good enough for a future blog…

You may be in a school that is keeping costs down by making staff invigilate exams. If so, just know in advance this will be the most boring hour of your life⁶, so let’s try and lighten that mood. At the start of the exam, pick a student in the hall. The other invigilators have to guess who it is, but you’re not allowed to talk, so they go and stand next to a student. You stay at the front and give them clues. You might shiver if they are miles away, or pull at your collar and wipe sweat from your brow if they are close. If they are spot on, you have to hold your nose and pretend to sink.

We used to call it Battleships. Obviously, the students remaining clueless to the game is a vital part of it.

Until next time…

1. Other drinks available, but really why would you when you can have tea? ↩︎
2. Yes, yes, I know the theory that a goldfish’s memory is not that bad, but really how do we know? Do we send goldfish to the memory clinic? ↩︎
3. If you are reading this at any other point than November 2025, just insert whatever TV show is popular right now, and sleep easy in the knowledge Joe Marler was robbed. ↩︎
4. To misquote Monty Python, lucky, lucky bastards. ↩︎
5. Usually the afternoon after the morning of the exam. ↩︎
6. Even worse than the line manager’s meeting with the member of SLT least qualified to discuss your subject. ↩︎