Ends of term take on characteristics peculiar to the season. The long autumn term staggers to a close with statutory obeisance to nativity and Netflix. For students, it’s definitely time to take a proper break; for teachers, it’s the first opportunity since August to actually succumb to illness. Christmas never comes too early.

By contrast, the spring term comes to a shuddering halt. Public exams, which seemed so far away in January, now loom large. Despite not having been a classroom teacher for 10 years, my still-recurring nightmare involves reaching the end of this term with sections of the syllabus un-glossed.

Traditionally, teachers of students facing summer exams spend the last session before the Easter break impressing on their charges the imperative of holiday work. Barnaby Lenon has provided some excellent advice about how to approach holiday revision, in the form of five top tips - but inevitably, it was his prescription of seven hours revision a day that hit the headlines.

On its own, of course, it’s incendiary, if the student reads such injunctions as the teacher saying, “Right, I’ve done what I can, now it’s all up to you”. The best advice on how to use the holidays should come, not as a bolt out of the blue, but as part of the programme itself.

Quality over quantity

The absolute amount of time spent revising is only part of the picture; it should be about quality rather than quantity - how students use the time is really important, and students need guidance on that as well. If they are practised in independent learning, and able to set and keep to a plan, then great. On its own, telling students that they need to revise more is like the team coach telling his players at half-time that if they want to win, they have to score more goals.

My Lent sermon tended to start with the warning not to drift into the holidays with a vague intent to work at some point. Best to work out in advance which days are going to be genuine holidays, and which specific days are going to be work days. I encouraged students to divide these among their subjects and exam papers - it starts to get serious when it is realised just how little time there is per subject.

I’d encourage students to commit to spending these ear-marked work days in a disciplined way - and this is where Lenon’s seven hours comes in. He’s right, too, in advising that admin is the first task - putting notes in order, skim-reading them, cross-referring to the syllabus and identifying gaps or where additional coverage might be needed.

GCSE and A-level reforms have raised the stakes for terminal exams. If teachers feel that they have run out of time, then there might be a temptation to hand the gap-filling over to the students. But this isn’t what revision should be about. In a well-crafted linear course, revision is the opportunity for students to piece things together themselves, making links and new discoveries.

Like Easter itself, holiday revision might start in misery but it should end in joy.

Kevin Stannard is director of innovation and learning at the Girls’ Day School Trust. He tweets @KevinStannard1

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