Murray Morrison, a former “super tutor” and Founder and CEO of Tassomai – the award-winning learning and revision app – shares the secrets to good grades. His number one tip… start developing these habits from an early age!

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Revision is a skill that some students don’t master until far too late in their academic careers, but it’s one that they can really start practising from around 11 years old. As parents, it’s difficult to watch our children struggle with exams, so equipping them with the tools they need for independent learning is the best way to protect them from future exam stress.

In my younger days I travelled the world tutoring the children of pop stars and royalty and worked with thousands of students. This helped me discover the best techniques to help them work healthily towards the best possible marks without burning out.

As they move closer to their entrance exams, the focus starts to shift towards revision for the first time. Parents can play a big role in supporting the effort – especially if you can get involved with some of these exercises.

Revision is a family affair

If you work with your child to plan their study sensibly, not only will they achieve great results, but they can develop true self-knowledge and self-confidence. It won’t happen easily, but a little effort to set up good practices will pay off. Starting this kind of process early will reinforce knowledge and build good habits that last a lifetime. By the time they hit GCSEs they’ll be a master and while their friends are stressing, they’ll be full of confidence.

Some of you might have older children who are approaching their GCSEs, if so you may be interested to know that the Tassomai team recently published an updated version of our 35 page ‘GCSE Survival Guide’ for parents, which can be downloaded for free here.

Create the space for productive study

Physically, this might be setting up a spare room or a corner of a room and removing distractions and noise. Once a good study space is created, then you can help them to build a day-to-day routine so there’s protected time and breaks (25 minutes on, 5 minutes off is the general rule), bringing snacks and water and making sure that there’s a balance between work and rest.

Help your child make a plan – and stick to it!

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of going headlong into revision, but it’s well worth investing a little time early on to do some planning and analysis. Go through the textbook or revision guide together to identify all the topics that need most attention, and build a plan to ensure all topics are covered but any ‘problem topics’ are given more regular attention. This will help your child to set a clear aim for each revision session: what will be looked at and what will be practised?

If you are able to talk to your child about how they get on each day and where they need more support, this will build metacognition, self-evaluation and self-reliance. Something they can only learn for themselves and will set them up for success in future exam periods.

Identifying gaps, learning through practice and then acknowledging the improvement that has been made becomes a constructive habit. It becomes sustainable.

Unlike the student who is being spoon-fed information, if they study this way with the support of their family, they build lasting knowledge and a platform from which they can progress to the next level.

Make your child an active learner

Private tuition has become increasingly popular over the last 20 years, but it runs the risk of students becoming passive and dependent on the tutor to work productively. Passive learning is considerably less effective than methods we built into Tassomai such as self-quizzing, feedback and spaced retrieval practice. Retrieval practice has been proven to be far and away the most effective way to embed knowledge.

Tassomai allows students to quiz themselves in their own time on 11+ and 13+ content all the way up to GCSE and AS level.

Encouraging your child to take an active role in their learning and revision is the best way to set them up for future success. Embedding good practices by targeting areas they don’t feel confident in will help them build confidence and create a learning framework for years to come.

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If you’d like to try Tassomai, you can trial for free for 7-days and get 50% off your first two months of Tassomai through your School Notices account here. If you have any questions about revision or would like to get in touch, please reach out to me on Twitter @MurrayTassomai.