Category Archives: Grade Riser

How often have you been on a course or watching a presentation and remembered everything you were told? Most likely, never. That’s because of the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. Professor Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who pioneered the development of experimental methods for the measurement of rote learning and memory. Basically, he studied the speed at…

Understanding how to put together assignments in a clear concise way is another important skill for all pupils, whether they are dyslexic or not. Our struggling children, in particular, often find a blank sheet of paper incredibly off putting and stressful. They take so long to even start that they run behind and regularly don’t…

Does your child blindly jot down notes from a lesson? How many of them never refer back to those notes until revision time, only to discover they don’t make sense? We have all done it. The problem is that when we actually need the information, when we need to try to move that information to…

There are very few pupils who simply sail along and get top grades with little work. They might manage it for a while but, once you get to GCSEs and above, it is hard work and persistence that wins out. Intelligence (whatever that may be) is not the be all and end all; there are…

Do you like what you see in the mirror? We can all have help from other people to assist us in achieving our goals. But, ultimately, the person most interested in how we get on and most in control of our destiny is us. Encourage your child to look in the mirror to look at…

Are you set in your ways or looking for ways to improve? Identifying the mindset of your child is a useful technique to employ at the beginning of the year. Understanding what makes your child tick is essential. It will not only make your life easier, as a parent or home educator, but will help…

An ill prepared mountain climb will, most likely, end in defeat or worse. No-one would dream of arriving at the base of Mount Everest with no planning, training or kit and expect to successfully make the climb. Preparing for exams is a little like a mountain climb. You can’t just arrive in the exam room…

Becoming a grade riser means using effort to improve your skill. Not everyone is going to get top marks, but those struggling at the lower end can benefit hugely from some simple changes to how they work. Success and motivation will feed effort and this means looking at where pupils are at the beginning of…