Now that we are at week 34 of the course, we are starting to really get going with full length practice papers and press home exam technique. Using our own papers gives us the opportunity to draw on historical results to gauge how well the students are progressing.

At this stage, we are finding that some of our more able children aren’t achieving their full potential as they have a ‘perfectionist’ aspect to their personality and feel that they must ‘figure everything out’ and answer every question correctly – meaning that they very often run out of time in many of the separate sections on the practice papers. These students are also prone to showing signs of stress which we are aware that we need to manage appropriately and very carefully.

The students with a more ‘cavalier’ attitude are much more relaxed and are easily finishing the papers within the time.

We need to fine a correct balance to achieve the best results.

We are keen to revisit the rules for ‘quick maths’ each session from now on: