12/10/2026
Parents, a quick check-in about mock season 💙
Mocks are coming up for a lot of students. November for some, December or January for others. They matter more than people realise, because they feed into predicted grades and the college conversations that follow.
So here's what's worth asking at home.
Is the revision actually working? There's a real difference between ticking boxes and learning something. Flashcards, writing a method out step by step, testing themselves: that's revision. Reading through a past paper and moving on usually isn't.
Are they taking breaks? Focus doesn't hold for hours at a stretch. In my experience around 45 minutes and then a proper break works far better than one long block. Two to three hours a day, broken up, is plenty at this stage.
Is their space organised? Feeling on top of things is half the battle, and drowning in loose paper makes it all feel worse than it is.
And please don't let them cram the night before. What they need most before an exam is sleep. Anything learned at midnight tends to sit in short term memory and vanish the moment the paper is in front of them.
Then the one that matters most: how are they in themselves? How are they talking to you? How are they with their friends? Quiet, loud, withdrawn, stressed? This is the point in the year when it all starts to feel real, and that lands differently on every student.
If you've got a question, or you'd just like to talk something through, send me a message here or come to gcmathstutoring.com.
StudentWellbeing MathsTutor Year11
