The ongoing coronavirus situation is creating many unknowns around this years GCSE exams.
Whatever happens in the coming months, though, the issue of how to motivate students to revise for exams will remain a fixture of the teacher-student dynamic.
This must feel like a losing battle for teachers when there often appears to be little co-operation from pupils to engage in the learning process.
Understandably educators have developed many motivational tools to keep a GCSE classroom productive. Sadly many of them don’t work.
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1. Arguing the relevance of your subject
Many school children argue that the content they learn at GCSE has little importance in later life, therefore they have little motivation to learn it.
When faced with this question, a common response used by teachers across the country is to justify that their GCSE subject’s content is in fact useful.
Of course, basic numeracy and literacy skills do underpin all roles in our workforce. But arguing that GCSE knowledge of Edward I’s 1290 Welsh campaigns, the process of addition polymerisation and the hormones involved in plant reproduction will help any student in their daily life is not convincing, especially when a student has no desire to take the subject further.
The real benefit to our youth is in the form of skills - communication, problem solving and negotiation, among others. In my opinion, the best way to get this across is to talk about the opportunities that are enabled by GCSEs.
Reminding students that they will be stronger candidates, whatever their chosen pathway, with the relevant qualifications is a much strong motivation as it links trying their best in every subject to their future ambitions.
2. Group projects and teamwork
Group projects are often undertaken so that students can improve their teamworking skills while also researching the content of their GCSE subjects.
However, I believe this teaching method should be used sparingly. For students, group projects lead to imbalances of effort and there is often one lead team member who does the work, while many others exploit the freedom of relying on the leader.
In this way, group projects can cause less motivated students to trail even further behind, ultimately making their revision and examinations harder in the future. As well as this, top students may worry that the team will not perform well enough.
Instead, I believe a buddying system of a stronger and weaker student working together could help to bring grades up, or dividing work such that every member of the team is allocated a task.
At the very least, separating group performance from individual attainment will reduce stress levels during the important GCSE years.
3. Reward systems
Rewards systems like merits and house points are common forms of appraisal that encourage younger pupils to work hard. However, at GCSE level, most students are too old to be excited and engaged by the idea of a merit in itself - yet the same rewards systems are used.
As these clearly lose their worth through Year 10 and 11, we must look at different forms of encouraging engagement through appraisal.
For some in KS4, contacting parents to celebrate good work would be more powerful - or even better, a small voucher to use in the canteen or other school services where budgets allow. This is a well-known reward in many staffrooms!
Overall, it is worth teachers considering that different age groups often find different forms of motivation effective.
Younger groups are more likely to try to collect as many merits or house points as possible, whereas KS4 pupils need to have an intrinsic motivation, which it is extremely difficult for teachers to stimulate.
The key is to remind students that these qualifications will open pathways to their chosen professions, enabling them to access opportunities and earn a higher income. This is a much stronger motivation. Make of that what you will.
