It was a pleasure to welcome back The Life Skills Company on 30 April 2019 to run their 'Maximising Success' workshops with Year 10 students as they begin to look ahead to their end of year exams, as well as to their final GCSEs. All Year 10s attended a two hour session which introduced them to the principles of effective revision and allowed them to try out each of twelve revision techniques to see what might work for them.Many of the techniques, such as flashcards and post-its, will have been familiar to students. However, linking these to some key principles behind effective revision, such as using colour, capital letters, underlining and images to make points stick, will have helped students to understand how to make the best use of these strategies. At some points in the sessions, students were asked to use their voices, to sing along and interact, as well as thinking about how they can use movement and space to help material 'stick'. The first 120 students in the sessions were asked to evaluate the sessions and we are delighted that 57% of them rated the sessions at 9/10 for quality and usefulness, with 97% rating the sessions at 7/10. Some of the comments included:

· I learnt a lot new revision techniques – thank you.

· You made it fun and they were good revision techniques.

· Kept it from being boring – their enthusiasm was very good.

· I learnt what techniques work best for me.

· I enjoyed that it was interactive and you could try all the techniques.

· I liked that we got to work together and get up and move around.



A reminder that an overview of these strategies was presented to parents and carers as part of the welcome meeting in September 2018.