Teaching Exam Technique – Command words
Reword-write-mark-correct Relevant for GCSE and A-Level I hope everyone has had a relaxing summer holiday (without working too much!) and that you were happy with your exam results. As the start of a new year beckons, I've been reflecting on the importance of the first few weeks of lessons. Setting expectations is of course vital, but I think one of the (many) keys to success is embedding skills from the get-go. When I first started teaching, I fell into the trap of teaching the content very thoroughly and only briefly covering skills and exam technique every now and then. The result was students who had fantastic knowledge, could apply that knowledge to explain behaviours (verbally) and could suggest excellent evaluation points, but couldn’t write their ideas in a way that earned them the marks that they should have been able to achieve. Over time, I’ve realised that teaching exam technique and the skills of the course is as important as teaching the content, if