Grade 9 Students Do This!
55% of my viewers said they got a grade 8 or 9 this year.
That is insane. So, obviously, my first thought was: Mr Salles, you are a genius.
But my second thought was: no way are they just watching your videos. You are not as smart as you think. Ouch.
And then I thought: I bet these students aren’t geniuses either. I bet they’ve simply worked out how to revise better than everyone else.
So I asked them. I got nearly 100 replies from students with grade 9. This is what they said.
13 of them really did say, “It was just your videos!” So, my ego moved a little bit up the genius scale.
But the rest of them kept my feet on the ground. They said:
Intentional Thinking
I asked each viewer to give me their top tips in how they prepared for the exam. Sometimes I asked for 5, at other times 3, and sometimes as many as they wanted to share.
What do you notice about grade 9 students?
They had a lot to say. We can’t say that they worked harder than grade 8 students, but they did think much more intentionally, and in much more detail, about how to spend their revision time.
And they were simply worlds ahead of grade 7 students in thinking about just how to spend their time.
(It is worth saying that students might have been doing all kinds of things they didn’t mention – but because I asked them for their top methods, these are the ones they thought had most impact in getting them the grade.)
Literature
Stand out features of how they chose to spend their time was in essay preparation. They wrote lots of answers. They got their teachers to mark these. This is my number one tactic, as it brings everything you’ve learned together.
They were tactical about what quotes to use, and tended to link these to alternative interpretations, context and the writer’s purpose. (If a student said they bought my guides, or watched a load of my videos, I simply assumed they were doing this, as my content is full of it).
They were therefore likely to focus on key quotes, rather than volume of quotes.
Their most valuable resource was student answers, whether from school, or in my videos, or my guides. They read top grade answers and saw how the mark scheme is applied.
They were also likely to write and memorise thesis statements to all the essays, and they would tend to write essay plans in their revision, when not writing full essays.
They realised that some words force the examiner to give you higher marks, so they memorised and practised these.
Language
For question 5, they were more likely to choose the story than the description. They were also quite likely to have pre-planned or pre-written the story , or parts of it.
For paper 2, they read widely and thought about general knowledge and cultural capital they could include in their persuasive writing.
Although I only recently made videos on the importance of ‘points make prizes’, they were much more likely to use this approach than longer paragraphs structures commonly taught in school (Or even PRTEZEL!)
Exam Tactics
They would experiment with the question order of the language exam, and often start with question 5.
They tended to realise that many of the marks are simply about writing speed, so practised question timings and writing more quickly.
Only the grade 9 students spoke about taking pleasure in being creative, and treating the exam as a positive experience.
Does it Take Intelligence?
Go back through the list of what grade 9 students do. Only one of them needs you to be clever. And out of the 50+ students, only 6 students mentioned it: ‘Enjoy being creative’.
Everything else is just work. Any student can do it.
No student doing it would get less than a grade 7. Most would get grade 8. And a large number would get grade 9.
Why not you?
You can get all my books on Kindle Unlimited for FREE! for 30 days. Here’s the link.
What guides Mr Salles? Here’s the list:
Language Guides
Guide to 100% in the Language GCSE https://amzn.to/2EwpvmG
Guide to Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling https://amzn.to/2wJT3xH
Guide to Awesome Story Writing: https://amzn.to/2EQHIwZ
Ultimate Guide to Description (including 20+ Grade 9 Answers!) https://amzn.to/3Jg8ZYC
Quick Guide to Awesome Description https://amzn.to/34t1ERe
Ultimate Guide to Persuasive Writing https://amzn.to/3ch3zxK
Guide to 100% in Language Paper 1 Question 2 https://amzn.to/3LsRGFt
Guide to 100% in Language Paper 1 Question 3 https://amzn.to/3Sils1D
Guide to 100% in Language Paper 1 Question 4 https://amzn.to/3MI4ZCu
Guide to 100% in Language Paper 1 Question 5 https://amzn.to/3TedzLM
Guide to 100% in Language Paper 2 Question 2 https://amzn.to/48lS6Zo
Guide to 100% in Language Paper 2 Question 3 https://amzn.to/46c0VD0
Guide to 100% in Language Paper 2 Question 4 https://amzn.to/46bqzb1
Literature Guides
Guide to GCSE English Literature https://amzn.to/2JkpfLC
Guide to An Inspector Calls: https://amzn.to/2EO6iye
Guide to Jekyll and Hyde https://amzn.to/34njncR
Ultimate Guide to Macbeth https://amzn.to/33QJeKf
Ultimate Guide to A Christmas Carol https://amzn.to/2QvT2Xk
Ultimate Guide to Romeo and Juliet https://amzn.to/3BNhmpY
Guide to Power and Conflict Poems AQA (11 Grade 9 Essays) https://amzn.to/3KHDAxK
Books on Teaching and School Leadership
The Full English: How to be a brilliant English teacher https://amzn.to/3vXcq1y
The Slightly Awesome Teacher: https://amzn.to/2q7Z1ks
The Unofficial Ofsted Survival Guide https://amzn.to/2Uivxk1
How to Differentiate Your School https://amzn.to/3drteTm