Every year, we work hard to build our Year 11s up to succeed in their GCSE examinations. They usually perform very well, then they take their new-found assurance and confidence and disappear. And so we begin again each September with a new cohort.
We started to feel that our current students could be missing a vital sense of perspective: namely, that GCSEs are part of an academic journey, not its terminus. Because of our large catchment area, our former students attend a plethora of post-16 providers, many of which are more than an hour away from our school, and so opportunities for our Year 11s to interact with older students are limited.
Having read Daniel Coyle’s book, The Culture Code, we had an idea to try to increase the sense of belonging and psychological safety of Year 11 students in the run-up to their exams.
Coyle recounts a study conducted by Gregory Walton from Stanford University, in which subjects were given a moderately difficult cognitive challenge. Some subjects were given a “tip” from a fictional previous participant.
This was actually just a good luck message that offered no practical guidance but, intriguingly, these simple notes doubled the amount of time that subjects persisted with the challenge, compared with a control group that received no message.
In addition, it significantly increased their reported enjoyment of the task and increased their desire to tackle similar tasks in the future.
We decided to utilise this idea by having former students communicate with our current Year 11s. It would, we hoped, make students feel more at ease and lead to increased resilience and performance.
GCSEs: what students should know
In November, Year 11 students from the 2022-23 cohort returned to school to collect their GCSE certificates and we asked each of them to write a few words on a postcard for a current Year 11 student.
The brief was to offer encouragement and advice that they wished they had heard while they were still in Year 11. There was no suggestion that the note should be written with a particular student in mind nor that they should involve any revision or subject-specific strategies. The postcards could be left anonymously if they wished.
Our former students took the task seriously. They seemed to know instinctively what message they should share, taking a card and writing their advice privately, in a booth we had set up for the purpose.
We were delighted with their engagement, particularly from students who had found Year 11 challenging. For some, leaving their guidance for the next generation seemed a cathartic experience which, along with collecting their GCSE certificates, was a fitting way to close out their time at the school.
Some comments were long and thoughtful, others playful. Some were simple and motivational. Examples included:
“Work hard, it isn’t for long! I promise it is worth it afterwards! It isn’t as scary as it seems. Good luck!”
“Good luck! Work hard and make the most of your time left at Ryedale. It is a fantastic school! Do a little bit at a time and you will smash it. Now crack on!”
“Start revising early, and listen to Taylor Swift!”
A sense of perspective
We proof-read and pruned the messages, and then presented them to students as part of our revision launch. Students were given a yellow ring-binder folder as well as materials and strategies for organising their revision. This year, the postcards were in the folders, too.
While objective impact is difficult to measure, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. In their weekly meetings, senior prefects have expressed that they enjoyed receiving the messages and reported that they had achieved their purpose.
When asked, two months after the revision launch, all students could remember exactly what their card said.
In addition, parents have said that they love the idea, and that their children have appreciated the reminder that they are not the first students to go through the process of taking GCSEs.
We will repeat this strategy next year and are considering ways to increase its efficacy. We are confident that the messages sent by our current Year 11s to next year’s cohort will be even better, as the writers will have been previous recipients.
We also believe that there can be a greater emphasis on the power of belonging and psychological safety in our revision launch and that the cards offer a great opportunity for parents to discuss their own experiences with their children.
Other thoughts include whether the authorship of the cards could be extended to include support staff and teachers, and whether personalised cards may be more impactful than anonymous ones.
Andy Milne is senior lead for mathematics and Robert Pepper is acting headteacher at Ryedale School
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