A Summer of Stealth: Encouraging Subtle GCSE Support

Summer needs to feel like summer. Teens need to relax with friends, family, and spend some time just chilling at home without the day-to-day pressures of school. This downtime is hugely important, as it allows students time to relax, refresh and return to school better placed to cope with the demanding GCSE year ahead.

While there’s been much written about the “summer slide” which in simple terms is the academic momentum lost over the summer break, research indicates that it’s most noticeable in languages and maths where repetition and practice help consolidate skills. The encouraging news is that preventing it doesn’t involve slogging away at a desk revising for the entire summer. There are plenty of ways to subtly engage in learning without it becoming onerous, stressful and spoiling the holidays.

Here at Sherpa Tutors we’ve pulled together some thoughts on how parents can quietly prepare for GCSEs in the background without intruding on the summer fun.

Understanding the School Report

Most parents read the school report when it’s issued and make a broad assessment of whether it’s good, bad or concerning. However, it’s always worthwhile rereading and analysing it in detail once the term has ended, examining marks and comparing them to previous performance, scrutinising teachers’ comments to understand their observations of where strengths and weaknesses lie in each subject. In this way you can start to identify where additional support might be needed.

GCSE Exam Boards 

Find out which exam board your child is studying for each GCSE subject (AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC / Eduqas, CCEA). This might be available on a school portal, or sometimes you can identify this from the textbooks and resources your child is using. 

Once you know the exam boards you can find past papers, examiner reports, and details of official mark schemes that show how examiners award marks and what they are looking for when marking an exam paper. The exam board also outlines the full syllabus and its attainment expectations for each grade boundary.

This isn’t to say that you bombard your child with past papers over the summer, it is part of the stealth approach so that when GCSE revision intensifies during the academic year you have the right tools close to hand to support them. Forewarned is forearmed.

Consider Tutoring Support Early

If you think your child might benefit from tutoring support, summer is a sensible time to start exploring options. Good tutors often have limited availability once the new school year begins, so it's worthwhile doing your research before September rather than waiting until it’s urgently needed. At Sherpa Tutors we offer free, no commitment introductory sessions with tutors, so you can meet them, chat about their approach to see if they are the right tutor for you.

Top Podcast Recommendations to Support GCSE Syllabuses 

The brilliant thing about learning is that it doesn't always have to happen at a desk or in obvious ways. Long car and train journeys provide the perfect opportunities to absorb information without even realising it.

GCSE History Podcast Recommendations

• You're Dead to Me (BBC Sounds) is an entertaining and accessible show that covers GCSE History topics. It brings together historians with comedians and covers both light-hearted topics such as underwear through the ages, but also topics aligned with Edexcel, AQA and OCR history specifications with episodes on The Space Race, The Berlin Wall and The History of Medicine.
• The Rest Is History brilliantly dives deep into historical events with its superb hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. It’s intellectually robust and would suit those working at a high level in history. It’s long running so has many relevant episodes to those taking GCSE History.
• GCSE History Revision Podcast (Apple), a podcast designed specifically to help with AQA GCSE history and OCR GCSE Ancient History Revision. It’s closely aligned to the syllabus, so not quite as subtle a resource as the two previous podcasts but it’s highly useful nonetheless. 

GCSE English Literature Podcast Recommendations

• The Book Club by Goalhanger, has brilliant and wide raging conversations on books, that bring in the historical context and often include lots about the author as well. The podcast includes an episode on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for those studying GCSE AQA or Pearson Edexcel English Literature. It also covers many texts on the recommended wider reading lists for English Literature. 
• BBC Sounds also has dramatisations of Frankenstein and other GCSE English Literature texts including Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, An Inspector Calls, Pride and Prejudice and Animal Farm.
• BBC Bitesize has dedicated podcasts analysing GCSE English Literature texts from Macbeth to Romeo and Juliet.  
• Backlisted is a brilliant erudite literary podcast that offers mature perspectives on GCSE English Literature novels including Animal Farm and Frankenstein. 

Science GCSE Podcast Recommendations

• The Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Sounds offers a witty, wide ranging and irreverent look at the world through scientists’ eyes, touching on many GCSE science topics including the body, the role of gases, DNA and Physical Materials.    
• BBC Inside Science looks at science’s role in contemporary affairs, such as medicine and vaccinations, global warming, space, chemicals and rare earths. It’s a great way for students to contextualise their GCSE science learnings, as sometimes seeing real-life applications can bring textbook learning to life. 

GCSE Geography Podcast Recommendations

• The Climate Question from the BBC World Service takes a look at many of the biggest issues on the GCSE Geography syllabus, including climate change, renewable energy, sustainability, extreme weather and the challenges facing different parts of the world. It also has a how to build a climate friendly city. It’s a superb resource to help students contextualise their GCSE geography lessons to real-world threats and events.
• Costing the Earth (BBC Radio 4) covers topics including rivers, flooding, coastal erosion, farming, biodiversity, food security and conservation. Many episodes link directly to GCSE Physical and Human Geography topics and encourage students to think critically and carefully about environmental issues.

GCSE Maths Podcast Recommendations

While subjects such as History, Geography and English Literature lend themselves brilliantly to podcasts because they're story-driven and discussion-based. GCSE Maths isn’t always the obvious choice to study through listening alone because it’s such a visual and practical subject.

However, the podcast GCSE Unlocked: Maths (Apple) does a very good job of explaining key GCSE maths topics with episodes covering Pythagoras and Trigonometry, Statistics Secrets, and Probability Principles.

Spontaneous Conversations 

While it’s not always easy to extract conversation from all teenagers, sometimes the most useful conversations happen naturally, unprompted during a car journey back from a friend or after listening to a podcast.

The summer holidays offer plenty of time for spontaneous chats, and potentially a glimpse into how they are really feeling about GCSEs.

Let summer be summer, it’s an incredibly important time to let teens recharge the batteries. However, a little preparation behind the scenes over the summer will go a long way to support the coming academic year.