LONGDEAN SCHOOL GCSE EXAM HANDBOOK 2012/13 Luck is when preparation meets opportunity Seneca 1
Important message The period between now and the end of your exams will be busy and challenging and will require you to put real effort and time into your learning and revision. It will all be worth it: Doing well in your exams means that you can take up the 6 th Form, college, apprenticeship, job, University place or career that you want. The exams are important even if you don t yet know for sure what you want to do in future: Success in the exams means that you can keep lots of doors/ options open, giving you a wider choice when you do come to think about your next step. The staff at school are here to provide you with the support and help you need whilst preparing for and during - the exam period. Sensible breaks and looking after yourself is also important and can help keep you motivated, refreshed and on task. This guide is full of very important and incredibly useful information that will guide you with your GCSE exams. Please take the time to read it carefully. It has been a pleasure looking after and teaching you. We wish you the best of luck with your revision and your exams! GOOD LUCK! Please also read the instructions, regulations and warnings from the exam boards (e.g. the posters stuck on the doors to the exam room). This booklet is designed to accompany them. 2
STUDY LEAVE There will be no study leave prior to GCSE exam papers taken in Year 9 or 10. If you have an afternoon exam, you will attend lessons in the morning, and if you have a morning exam, you will return to lessons after your exam is finished. There will be revision sessions prior to an exam, but apart from this, students will be in normal lessons. Normal lessons will continue for year 11 until May half-term, although there will be revision sessions built into this before an examination. There will be a short period of study leave after May Half-Term for Year 11. During this time, if you do not have an exam scheduled, you do not need to be in school, unless you have a revision session for an exam (i.e. If you have a morning exam, you can go home after it is finished and if you have an afternoon exam, you can arrive in time for the exam). If you do not have an exam, but would like to be in school to revise, you will be welcome. If you are coming in for a revision session or to work in the SSC, you should sign in at reception. If you come in for an exam, you will be registered in the exam, so you do not need to sign in. Details of all revision sessions for exams will be sent out and posted on the Learning Platform. Attendance at revision sessions is compulsory. A register will be taken and non-attendance may be linked to Prom permission for year 11. THE DAY OF THE EXAM Dress in full school uniform. If you don t, you might not be allowed into the exam. Make sure you have the right equipment for your exam (PTO for details!) Morning exams Get to school no later than 8.30am in order for the exams starting at 9.00am. Afternoon exams Get to school no later than 12.45pm for exams starting at 1.15pm. Late? If you arrive after the start, you may be allowed to enter the room and sit the exam but this is up to the school so do everything to ensure that you are not late. If something happens beyond your control to prevent you from getting to the exam on 3
time, please proceed quickly to the exam room. If you are late, do not make any telephone calls or texts other than to the school. You will be asked to sign a declaration confirming that you have not had contact with any other person between the official start time of the exam and when you arrived at school. Before you go in Check the seating plan on the noticeboard to find out where you need to sit; have a drink; go to the toilet; sort out your equipment (see below); and take a deep breath: you ll be fine! IN THE EXAM Equipment For question papers where calculators are allowed, you need to ensure that your calculator meets the exam board rules, including: Calculators must be: of a size suitable for use on the desk; either battery or solar powered The candidate is responsible for the following: the calculator s power supply; the calculator s working condition. Calculators must not: be designed or adapted to offer any of these facilities: - - language translators; - symbolic algebra manipulation; - symbolic differentiation or integration; - communication with other machines or the internet. be borrowed from another candidate during an exam for any reason; have retrievable information stored in them this includes:- - databanks; - dictionaries; - mathematical formulas; - text. Calculators with dictionary, thesaurus or message functions are not allowed. 4
You may not bring a calculator case, cover or lid into the exam room. You must clear anything stored in a calculator memory; you may be asked to show the invigilators that the memory is empty at the start of exams. You may not bring into the exam room any calculator operating instructions or prepared programs. Dictionaries, thesauruses and computer spell-checkers are not allowed. If English is not your first language, speak to the Exams Officer well before the exam period to find out if you are entitled to a bilingual dictionary. You must not have a pager, mobile phone, ipod, MP3, MP4 player, watches with a data storage device or similar in your possession during an exam, even if switched off! Please hand them to the invigilator before you go in; he/she will keep them safely for you until you have left the exam hall at the end. Only clear pencil cases are allowed in the exam room. If you do not have clear ones, please bring your things in a clear food bag or loose in your hand. The same applies to other cases e.g. cases for glasses and maths sets. You must only write in black ink or black ballpoint pen so make sure that you have the right colour pens (and some spares). Do not bring tippex or correction pens. (Exam boards don t allow them). You can use highlighters on question papers (e.g. to mark a key word in a question or bit of text) but you are not allowed to use them on your answer pages. Ensure that you have a few pens, pencils (incl. spares for if something runs out/ breaks), colour pencils, an eraser, a sharpener. Bring a geometry set (compass, protractor etc) if you need/ are allowed one for your exam paper. You may bring tissues and a clear, plastic bottle of water in with you if you d like to, but you have to have removed the label from the bottle. Food is not allowed. You may not bring any paper into the exam room apart from your individual candidate timetable, which has your candidate number on it (unwritten on). Please lock other paper and revision materials into your locker. 5
No school bags may be taken into the exam room. Please store them somewhere safely (e.g. in your locker) before you come in. Important things to know and follow! No communication of any type (whether talking or anything else) is allowed from the moment you enter the exam room until the moment you leave. If you break this rule, it has to be reported to the exam board who are allowed to disqualify you from that paper or the whole subject. You must not have a mobile phone, ipod, MP3, MP4 player, watch with a data storage function or similar in your possession during an exam, even if switched off. If you break this rule, it has to be reported to the exam board who are allowed to disqualify you from that paper or the whole subject. If on the day of the exam your work has been affected by illness, injury or some other recent, significant reason such as the bereavement of a close relative, the Exams Officer will investigate whether you can get Special Consideration. Please tell the Exams Officer or invigilator as soon as possible, and within four days of the exam at most. For illness or injury, you will usually need to provide a doctor s note. You may not leave the exam room during an exam unless it is really urgent and have a medical note with you. Read and carefully follow the instructions printed on the question paper and/or on the answer booklet. Fill in your name, candidate number, signature and anything else required on the question paper or answer booklet. Make use of all the time allowed and try not to have a last-minute rush. You may find it helpful to divide up the time between questions, using the number of marks available as a guide to what proportion of the paper to allocate to each question. Do your rough work only on the proper exam stationery, cross through anything you don t want marked, and attach it to your answers. If you are working on a laptop, please save your work very regularly so that you do not lose much of your work if there is an unexpected power/ computer failure. You will be told where to save your work to. 6
Listen to the invigilator and do what you are asked to do. Tell the invigilator immediately if: - you think you have not been given the right question paper or all the materials listed on the front of the paper - the question paper is incomplete or badly printed - you have a problem and are in doubt about what you should do - you feel ill - you need more paper You must not ask for, and will not be given, any explanation of the questions. Answer the correct number of questions; attempt all the questions you are required to answer. If you have a choice of questions, read all of the possible questions carefully and carefully decide which ones you will answer. A small slot of time allocated to planning essay-type answers is NEVER time wasted. If you are not involved in an exam that s running, stay well away from the exam room so that your friends are not disturbed. THE END OF THE EXAM If you finish your exam early, check through your work really well. You are not allowed to leave the exam room until the exam has finished. If you have been given extra time for your exams, you can either: - leave the exam room at the same time as the other students (those who have not been given extra time) i.e. use none of your extra time. - use some of the extra time. - use all of the extra time. At the end of the exam, make sure you have filled in all of the question numbers and that they are all correctly numbered. If you have used more than one answer booklet you must make sure that they all have all of your details and all of the question numbers on; are placed in the 7
correct order; and have been fastened together with a treasury tag before you leave. Make sure the invigilator has collected in all your work. If you are working on a laptop, ensure that all the pages have correctly printed, that you have signed every page and all pages have been collected in. You must not leave the exam room until the invigilator tells you to do so. You must not take from the exam room any exam stationery, used or unused, rough work or any other materials provided for the exam. When you are dismissed, move quietly and calmly away from the room; it s not fair to disturb other students who are still sitting an exam in the room. Whether there are others working or not, remember that you are still under exam conditions until you have left the room: If you communicate in the exam room, even if all the papers have been collected in, the school has to report it to the exam board who may choose to disqualify you. MISCONDUCT All cases of misconduct (e.g. communication or having a mobile phone with you) have to be reported to the exam board. The school does not have any choice if a candidate breaks any of the rules produced in this booklet or in the exam board instructions/ rules/ warnings. In serious cases of misconduct it could mean that your papers could be cancelled and that you would not be allowed to sit for that exam board at a future time. Please note that in order to properly prepare students for this rule, papers will also be cancelled if misconduct occurs in a practice e.g. mock - exam. Please find Frequently Asked Questions and answers below. 8
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs) There s a problem with when my exams are supposed to be. Refer to your individual timetable to find out when your exams are supposed to be. Mark them on a calendar on a noticeboard or in a diary at home. Speak to the Exams Officer ASAP about any errors or exam clashes. I don t know how to revise, or I spend ages preparing for an exam but never seem to remember what I have learnt. Look at the Exam Support section on the LLP: There is general advice on how to revise (e.g. ideas like mind maps, flow charts, chains ); links to the GCSEPod site (podcasts on lots of subjects and topics that you can get on your phone or computer); links to BBC Class Clips (video clips on lots of topics); and tabs which take you into revision sections prepared by your subject teachers and Directors of Learning. You will not love all of these: The key thing is to try different things and work out what works for you. For example, auditory learners could use GCSEPod or record notes, play them back (pausing after the title of the topic to say what they remember) and press play to check how much they ve recalled. Visual learners could use BBC Class Clips or try making notes with mind maps/ diagrams/ colours. I only prepare for an exam the night before otherwise I forget what I have learnt. Early revision reinforces the information and you are more likely to remember it when it matters. Sometimes I finish an exam far too early. It is quite normal to have 5-10 mins left to check for silly errors, but if you finish much earlier, it is possible that you have not answered as many questions as you should have, or that you need more detail. Go back and check through carefully. I am unwell on the day of the exam e.g. hay fever or asthma. You need to try to come to school anyway as you cannot sit the exam on another day. Let the Exams Officer know before the exam begins that you are unwell and follow up with a medical certificate from your doctor within the next few days. I am unwell on the day of an exam and cannot come to school. Ring school and speak to the Exams Officer as soon as possible, at least 20 minutes before the exam is due to start, who will give you advice e.g. whether there will be another opportunity. You must also get a medical certificate from your doctor. I feel ill in the exam. Put up your hand and explain the problem to an invigilator. 9
The bus/car/train I am travelling in is going to be late. Don t panic! Phone the school to tell them the problem and when you will be able to get there. After the start time of the exam, you must not make or receive any calls other than to the school. Get to the exam room as soon as you can. I sometimes panic or go blank. I can t understand the questions or I think we haven t learned the material. Invigilators cannot help with the understanding of a question, only with help about the instructions for the exam, for example the number of questions so read the question very carefully again and highlight key words. If you are still stuck, move on to the next question and leave enough time to come back to it again later. If you are still stuck, try to write something anyway: You won t get any points for writing nothing but you may be able to pick up some by having a go. Often what you have learnt may be there but in a differently worded question. Take care in reading the questions, look over past papers to get a feel for what is asked/ patterns, and pay attention in any revision lessons/ sessions. I find that I often don t finish exams. When revising, practise timing by trying past papers. In the exam room, divide your time into sections. Sometimes the exam board will recommend on the front of the paper how long you should spend on each question. If not, you can work out how to divide your time between the questions. Don t forget to think about how many marks are available i.e. If it s worth more marks, you need to leave more time for it. I lose marks because I seem to make lots of careless mistakes. Try not to rush your exam: There is usually plenty of time to plan your answers, think carefully and check what you have written. I do the wrong things in exams e.g. answering four questions instead of three. Read through any exam rubric (instructions) or questions with care if necessary, more than once. I have a problem that has affected me during exams e.g. a death in the family. You must tell the Exams Officer at the earliest opportunity, and certainly no later than four days from the date you took the exam. You may also wish to share the problem with a your form tutor or Pastoral Manager. I get very tired during exams. Look after yourself: Get plenty of sleep, avoid last-minute cramming, eat sensibly, and don t skip breakfast. 10
HINTS AND TIPS 1. Establish a routine for exam times. 2. Always try to get a good night s sleep before an exam. 3. Get all your things ready the previous evening. 4. Have a good breakfast (rumbling tummies are very noisy and food will give your brain the energy it needs!) 5. Wear suitable clothes. Have a school jumper and blazer with you so that you can keep them on if it is cool and remove them if it is hot in the Exam Room. 6. Don t try to cram last minute revision: It rarely helps. 7. Try to relax before the exam. 8. Don t be put off by what other students say. 9. Think positively! 10. Remember that the exam questions are not trying to catch you out; they are designed to let you show your knowledge and skills. It s your chance to shine. Don t Panic! ANY QUESTIONS? If you still have any questions after reading this booklet, please speak to the Exams Officer for general exams advice, or your subject teachers for subject-specific guidance. 11