Clara James Tutoring
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General ideas for revising
I hope you’ve had a good week. This week I’ve been asked 3 times about revising and English in general, so I thought I’d write about that this morning.
If I was organised, I would have written myself a series of notes to work from so that there was some form of flow to this, but I often find when I try the brain goes blank and it’s a bit like when someone says: what shall we talk about?
Revision:
Try to use 5 or more colours
when you’re revising, apparently it opens more neuropathways making it easier to remember. But on a more practical day-to-day level, when you come back to revise you are more likely to look at the bright, colourful sheet of paper than you are a sheet with an abundance of black text.
If you have set yourself a revision timetable and on (for example) Monday, you are going to do 90 minutes of English. Decide in advance what you will do in those 90 minutes rather than just sitting there making the decision and not achieving anything.
Don’t be over ambitious
with what you can achieve, you will set yourself up for failure, loose heart and end up not doing any. Start early with maybe just 15-30 minutes a day. That’s better than nothing and once you’ve gotten started you may find yourself doing more.
Don’t think you have to sit at a desk to revise.
Where do you feel most comfortable? Do you like music playing in the background or do you prefer it to be quiet. Have the things that you will need around you before you start so that you don’t get into the flow then realise you need to go and get some water, or your pen’s run out, or you need your calculator, etc.
Read.
Read anything but try to spend some time each day reading. It will help you on so many levels: creative writing, vocabulary, spellings, grammar, etc. If you can’t bring yourself to read, try audiobooks.
Get used to analysing things.
Many of the marks for English are in the analysis so when you’re watching something, listening to something think about why? Why are they telling you this, why are they using those words? what are they trying to persuade you of? The news is perfect for this: think about the people they are interviewing: why? How knowledgeable are they on the subject or are they just reinforcing the view of the article? Newspaper headlines: have they used any techniques such as alliteration or exaggeration to make it more appealing to the reader.
If it’s a day when you really can’t be bothered to revise watch YouTube clips on what it was you had intended revising. You’re still learning but in a way that takes a whole lot less effort…
Use a variety of resources to revise:
YouTube, create mind maps, look at past papers and their mark schemes. For some subjects MME provides model answers as well. Or you could ask ChatGPT for a model answer to help you learn how to structure it or the type of sentence openers you can use, etc.
Speaking to someone the other day, they said they used to stick their post stick notes to the back of the bathroom door so that whilst they were brushing their teeth or on the loo, they could spend their time constructively. Have them around the house so that you start to see them with your subconscious so that they become more natural to you.
Write them yourself, you’ll remember them better.
When J did his English Lit A’ level exam he created images from all of his quotes. So, for example: Macbeth: Is this a dagger I see before me?
He drew a dagger, an eye, the see, a bee, the number 4, and a picture of him.
The time and effort he took to create them well and truly solidified them in his brain. He again had them around his room, but we would also take the dog for a walk (never far, she only had 3 legs and didn’t like to walk) and talk about them as we walked.
KEY POINT
When it comes to the English Lit exam, you are normally told to do point, evidence, analyse, link it back to the question.
I would suggest that you do point: The environment is in part responsible for creating a suspicious atmosphere within this extract.
Then use several pieces of evidence and analyses to backup your point. By doing this your analysis doesn’t need to be so deep as you are spreading it over several points. So, for example you might talk about how the repetition of ‘street after street’ highlights how the whole city is deserted it’s not just an isolated area. (analyse this a bit more deeply this is just to give you the gist). Within the same point you might then talk about the section where it states that you yearn to see a policeman, or how it is 3am on a dark winter’s morning. Talk about the implications of the fact he is out at 3am and it’s dark. Rarely does anything good happen in the dark, and its winter and how that is the end of the seasons, maybe also reflecting on how it is the end of life as we know it. All of which help to create a suspicious atmosphere in this part of the text.
It is so much easier to structure it like that because you’re less likely to repeat yourself and your analysis like I say, can be spread thinner rather than having to think of something really deep and profound about just a couple of words.
Something else I would suggest is that you are subtle about your quotes. It’s a bit like if you have been given a detention at school. You don’t want to come in and make a public declaration to your parents, instead you want to discretely drop it into conversation and hope they don’t register it in the moment. Your quotes are the same. Try to make them run smoothly rather than announcing them in advance.
If you struggle with sentence openers let me know. I have sentence openers for questions 2 and 3 English Language Paper 1 and will get question 4 done before the end of the week, I will happily send them over to you.
You can get the English Language Paper 2 sentence starters here
For now, my brain is closing down but I hope that has helped a bit. Any questions at all, please do ask.
Good luck and remember at the end of the day, the effort you put in to the revision is what you should be proud of, if you walk into the exam knowing that there was nothing more that you could have done, you should walk out with your head held high regardless of the results.
Happy New Year - Jan 2024
Happy new year!
I hope you’ve had a brilliant break over Christmas.
I know some people have been on holiday, others have been enjoying family time at home. Either way, I hope it was fantastic.
Someone sent me a Christmas present just before the bog day, but I have no idea who it was from, so I can’t say thank you. I feel really guilty as it seems like bad manners, but it was just in a box from M&S with no message attached.
This year, I have committed to send out the notification when the monthly membership bundle goes live, but I am also going to send out an (initially) fortnightly newsletter with suggestions for revision / secondary school Math / English, then in the alternate week a newsletter with suggestions for the primary subjects.
If either of them isn’t relevant, please either let me know and I will ensure you just get the primary or secondary newsletter if you want it, or just click unsubscribe (but then you also won’t receive the email about when the bundle goes live).
My goal is to keep you more in the loop as to what is happening. For example, we occasionally put free courses on Udemy – we’ve just done one on angles – here’s the link if wanted. It was created to promote the topic book we have also created; we’ve also got revision planners for students that might be suitable for some GCSE parents.
At Christmas we also had some free times-tables colouring sheets which you may not have been aware of, so like I say, it may not be of interest to you, but if it is, at least you’ll be aware of it. I have 3 revision planners and 3 angles topic books to give away if you’re interested. Let me know and I’ll happily pop one in the post for you (or give it to you if I’m likely to see you…).
If you do have one, if you could give it feedback on Amazon (I’ll send you the link) that would be hugely appreciated.
Happy new year for now and warm wishes,
Dawn
Times Tables - Jan 24
Hi,
Last week I sent out an email saying I was going to try and commit to sending out an email at the beginning of each week on ideas to support primary school children, then later in the week about supporting secondary school children.
As a result, I was asked if I could also send out some ideas to support the 11+.
(Again, if this doesn’t concern you let me know and I’ll try to ensure that you don’t receive them).
I’ll send the 11+ emails on an alternate Wednesday as I normally have Alfie, my grandson on a Tuesday and the odds of getting much done with a lively 2-year-old for company…
There will be some cross over between primary school and secondary school subjects, but at any stage there is something you specifically want me to help with, please do shout.
So, back on subject, sorry…
Times tables have always been one of the key subjects that I work on with, specifically primary aged children, but also secondary school children, and often the parents say they’re awful at them as well…
I don’t suggest learning them in chronological order.
If you do, you’ll hit some of the much harder ones before you get to some of the easier ones.
Instead, what I suggest (and you’ve probably heard me say this before) is that you start with the 10’s, 11’s, 2’s and 5’s as they do in school.
Then deviate across to the 9’s as there are so many tricks to help you to learn them.
Then the 6’s or 7’s. Crazy I know! But they are quite simple if you split them so that 6x8 becomes: 5x8 + 1x8 = 50+8 Or 7x8 becomes 5x8 + 2x8 = 40 +16 = 56.
From there you can pretty much work in any order.
The 12’s is also straight forward as we can split it into 10x + 2x which would give us the same answer as 12x.
There are more suggestions on the times tables over in the Clara James Approach, or I have a sequence of emails which sends out once a month with suggestions on how to learn each of the times tables with some resources. If it would help, the link is here: Support your child with their times tables - The fun way! (sendfox.com)
I hope that’s helpful and not just waffle.
Like I say if there is anything specific you would like us to focus on, please do give me a shout.
Have a great week and warm wishes,
Dawn
Hand Writing Support
Hi,
I hope you had a good weekend.
Something I am often asked about is supporting hand-writing skills.
At a young age this may relate to the hand muscles in the hands not yet being fully developed and I have a few suggestions that may help.
As the child gets older, you may want to find the support of an occupational therapist to provide some suggestions.
1. Start big: I guess it’s a bit like parking a car. When you are first asked to park a car, you wouldn’t want to park in a narrow gap, you’d hopefully save that until you were more confident, more skilled. Handwriting practice is the same, using a big piece of paper is far better than trying to squeeze your imperfect shapes between two narrow lines. Even better, (if the weather is more forgiving) start by using water to paint on the side of the house, a patio or footpath). Use large movements and as these improve start to shrink it down to what is expected inside a school exercise book.
2. Jenga: I love this game and we’ve adapted it by writing numbers of the bricks so that we can practice number bonds or the times tables, we’ve also got grammatical terms on others so that we can also practice those. But the skill and care needed to remove the brick from the tower without it all tumbling is a great way to practice the fine motor skills which will in turn support handwriting.
3. Colouring is another suggestion: keeping the colouring inside the lines is another skill that requires practice and patience. Again, the strokes used in colouring can further aid the shapes created when writing letters.
4. Sewing again requires the use of the fine motor skills needed for neat handwriting. You may just do a normal running stitch on a square of fabric, or you may decide to make something or use a more elaborate stitch. Either way I hope this helps.
5. Playdough and clay are other great early interventions to building up the muscles in the hands. The stronger and more developed the muscles are the more precise we can be with our writing.
To be honest, anything that needs to be precise will help. Many crafts and building activities help.
For some people, messy handwriting is always an issue.
There are a couple of members of my family whose handwriting I always struggle to read, yet they are so intelligent. It doesn't seem to add up. But my daughter says, if she doesn’t write quickly, she can’t remember everything her brain is throwing at her. Her brain works at such a speed.
I used to tutor a girl a couple of years back. I hadn’t realized her mum was an invigilator for the A’ levels at the school my youngest went to.
Not long after Hay sat her history the mum asked me if my daughter was doing her exams now.
Yes.
Does she do History?
Yes. Is she called Angel?
Yes.
She said, I thought it must be your daughter.
I have never seen anyone writing so quickly. I expected sparks to come off that page!
There are many reasons why people have scruffy handwriting, sometimes it needs to be investigated and like I say, if you are worried about it, it might be worth while trying to get in touch with an occupational therapist.
Sometimes, practicing using the suggestions above will help. Sometimes, like with Hay, it’s just one of those things that make them, them.
I hope this has helped a bit.
Have a great week and warm wishes,
Dawn