Katie - Private Tutor & Executive Function Coach

Nagging makes studying worse. ❌

Many parents tell me during exam season: "I’m constantly reminding my child to revise."

But the more parents push, the more teenagers often resist.

Not because they don’t care, but because pressure can quickly turn into stress 😓 and ultimately, avoidance.

I recently spoke with a parent who reminded her son to revise every evening. Eventually he started avoiding the topic completely.

Instead, they tried something different.

Once a week they sat down together and made a simple revision plan. 📝

Overtime the tension begun to disappear, and he started revising much more consistently. 📈

Students are far more likely to follow a plan they helped create.

What is the hardest part about getting your child to revise right now?

Messy desks often mean messy thinking. 🧠

One thing I notice during tutoring sessions is that students who struggle with revision often have no system for organising their work.

Papers everywhere. 📄 Notes in different notebooks. 📓 Revision guides mixed with homework. 📚

When a student sits down to study, they already feel overwhelmed before they even start.

And overwhelm often leads to avoidance.

During exam season, this becomes an even bigger problem. 🎓

Students waste time looking for notes, trying to figure out what to revise, or simply feeling stuck about where to begin.

I recently worked with a GCSE student who found it almost impossible to start revision. Not because he didn’t want to study, but because his materials were everywhere:
❌ Notes in multiple notebooks
❌ Worksheets loose in his school bag
❌ Revision guides mixed with homework

Once we organised his materials into simple folders for each subject, something interesting happened.

Revision suddenly felt much easier to start. 📂

Organisation reduces the mental friction of getting started. And when starting is easier, students are much more likely to actually begin revising.

👇 Below are four simple ways students can organise their revision to make studying that much easier.

Question for parents: Does your child have a clear system for organising their school work?

Most GCSE students revise the wrong way.

When I ask students how they revise, the most common answer is: “Reading my notes again.” 📚

The problem?

Rereading feels productive, but it’s one of the least effective ways to learn.

Your brain recognises the information, but it doesn’t actually remember it. 🧠

That’s why students often say: “I knew it when I revised… but I couldn’t remember it in the exam.”

I recently worked with a GCSE student who spent 3 hours rereading biology notes. When I asked him to explain the topic without looking at the page… He could only remember about 20% of it. Once we switched to active recall (testing himself instead of rereading), his retention improved dramatically. 📈

Instead of rereading notes, ask your child to:
1️⃣ Close the book
2️⃣ Write down everything they remember about a topic
3️⃣ Check what they missed
4️⃣ Repeat the process

This method is called active recall.

It’s one of the most powerful revision techniques for GCSE and A-Level exams.

What revision methods does your child usually use?

8 weeks until GCSE and A-Level exams begin! 📅

One of the most common things I see at this stage of the year is students who understand the content but still struggle when it comes to exam questions.

Biology exams don’t just test whether students recognise information, they test whether students can apply their knowledge to unfamiliar questions under time pressure.

This is something many students find challenging, even if they have revised the material.

Over the past few weeks in my small-group Biology tutoring sessions, we’ve been focusing heavily on working through exam-style questions and helping students understand what examiners are really looking for.

These sessions support UK and international students 🌍 preparing for I/GCSE and A Level Biology, mainly for AQA and CAIE exam boards.

During sessions we focus on:
🧠 Breaking down complex questions
📝 Understanding how marks are awarded
📖 Building strategies for approaching longer answers

The small-group format allows students to ask questions 👥, practise exam questions together, and gain confidence in tackling more difficult problems.

📅 Next week's schedule is attached below.

If your child is currently finding Biology exams challenging 🧬, or would benefit from structured support as exams approach, you can register your interest using the link below.

🔗: https://lnkd.in/eiQJz2BK

Many parents feel confused when they see their child working hard but still struggling academically.

The effort is there. The hours are being spent studying. Yet the results don’t seem to reflect the work. ⏳

Often, the issue isn’t ability or motivation, it’s that students haven’t yet been shown how to study in a way that prepares them for exams. 🧠📉

I’ve written a short article exploring why this happens and what parents should know about study strategies and executive function.

You can read it here 👇🏼

"My child studies for hours, but the results don’t reflect the effort."

This situation is far more common than people realise. 💬

In many cases, the student is perfectly capable.

The problem is how they revise.

Most students use passive revision strategies, such as:
📖 rereading notes
🖍️ highlighting textbooks
🎥 watching explanations repeatedly

These activities feel like studying. But exams don’t test familiarity with the material, they test whether students can:
🧠 recall information independently
🔍 apply knowledge to new questions
🧩 analyse unfamiliar scenarios

Without practising those skills, even very capable students struggle in exams.

Often, the challenge is not intelligence. 💡

It’s having the right revision strategy.

Have you ever seen your child working incredibly hard but still struggling with exam results?

9 weeks left until GCSE and A-Level exams start! 📅

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been running small-group tutoring sessions for students studying Biology, and it’s been great to see students beginning to build confidence with the material.

These sessions support international and UK-based students preparing for I/GCSE and A Level exams 🌍 , mainly focusing on AQA and CAIE exam boards.

Alongside covering key subject content, I also focus on helping students develop the skills they need to approach exams more effectively, including:
🧠 Strengthening understanding of challenging topics
📝 Practising exam technique
📖 Developing more effective study strategies

Working in a small group environment allows students to ask questions 👥 , practise exam-style problems, and learn alongside others preparing for the same exams.

The weekly schedule is attached below.

If your child is currently finding Biology challenging 🧬, or would benefit from additional support in preparing for their exams, you can use the link below to register your interest 💬.

🔗: https://lnkd.in/eiQJz2BK

I’m so excited to officially launch my weekly groups tutoring sessions for GCSE & A Level Biology! ✨

I’m Katie, a qualified teacher with seven years experience tutoring and teaching biology at GCSE and A Level. These sessions are designed to be completely exam-focused, helping you feel confident and fully prepared for your exams.

📑 British exam boards only
🌎 UK & International students
♻️ Small group learning (max. 5 students)
💷 £25 per week
🗓️ Sessions run weekly until exams

These lessons are mainly targeted at AQA and CIE exams, but will also be highly relevant for Edexcel and OCR students.

If you’re ready to book and improve your biology grade, sign up to your first session using the link in my bio! 📭

Having worked closely with students in Kenya over the last year, I’ve had a growing realisation.

And not a good one. ❌

I don’t say this lightly, but I’ve been genuinely shocked by the impact it's having on students.

Two seemingly “progressive” changes are quietly making school harder for the neurodivergent students I support:
💻 Replacing books almost entirely with computers
🗓️ Removing physical homework planners

On the surface, they look like upgrades.

In reality, for many students, they’re removing the very scaffolding that helps them stay afloat.

For neurodivergent students structure is everything. 🧠

A physical book provides:
✔ Boundaries
✔ Fewer distractions
✔ Spatial cues
✔ A clear beginning and end

(Let's not even broach the topic of handwriting 😭) !!

A laptop provides:
⚠️ Tabs
⚠️ Notifications
⚠️ Switching
⚠️ Temptation
⚠️ Cognitive overload

And then there’s the removal of homework planners.

As an executive function coach, this one concerns me deeply.

A planner isn’t “just a diary.” It’s external working memory. 🫗 It’s a planning tool. 💭 It’s a visual reminder system. 👀

When everything lives on an online portal, students are expected to remember to log in, interpret instructions, prioritise tasks, and manage deadlines independently.

Those are advanced executive function skills. ⚡

Skills that are still developing well into early adulthood.

So, the highly organised students cope, but the overwhelmed students fall further behind, and often get labelled as careless or unmotivated. 📉

This isn’t anti-technology. Technology can be brilliant.

But when we digitise systems without explicitly teaching planning, organisation, and self-regulation, we widen the gap for the students who need structure the most.

I’m really curious, have you noticed these changes in your child’s school? 👪

Are books disappearing? Have planners been phased out? 📚🎒

I’d genuinely love to hear what you’re seeing.

I speak to so many parents who say the same thing:

“My child sits at their desk for an hour… but nothing really gets done.”

Often it’s not a motivation problem. It’s not ability. It’s that no one has ever shown them how to structure a revision session.

Research in cognitive science is very clear:
👉 Short, focused bursts
👉 Retrieval practice (not highlighting or rereading)
👉 Spacing and reflection
👉 Clear goals

And from an executive function perspective, students also need:
👉 A plan before they start
👉 A way to manage attention
👉 A way to monitor their understanding
👉 A clear stopping point

Below, is a simple and science-backed structure for a 60-minute revision session that I often use with my students. 🧠🔋

This structure breaks overwhelm into clear steps, builds independence, reduces passive revision, strengthens memory using evidence-based strategies, supports executive function skills like planning, monitoring, and task completion, and most importantly, it gives students a repeatable system.

Many students don’t lack intelligence. They lack structure. 💥

Once they know what an hour should look like, revision becomes far less intimidating.

If you think your child would benefit from support like this, please feel free to contact me. 📬

Inside my weekly GCSE Biology class 🧬🔬

We don’t just go over topics, we focus on targeted revision that will actually improve grades. ⭐

Throughout each session, we focus on:
📌 Mastering one high-impact topic in depth
♻️ Creating a clear, structured revision resource students can use again and again
📝 Practising common exam questions specific to that topic
🤝 Learning how to use mark scheme keywords and phrases to maximise marks

So, what makes these sessions different from typical tutoring?

I build Executive Function skills into every session. 🔎 Students learn how to plan, organise and structure their revision, so they become more independent across all subjects. 🕊️

Not just better at Biology, but better at managing exams. ⏳

My weekly GCSE Biology sessions are as follows:
🌍 Mondays 5:30–6:45PM (EAT) for Cambridge International students
🇬🇧 Thursdays 6:30–7:45PM (GMT) for AQA, Edexcel & OCR students

£25 per student, maximum 5 students per class.

If you’d like your child to feel calm, prepared and in control ahead of June, send me a message and I’ll let you know if there’s a space available. 💬