I’ve been preparing students for their GCSE and iGCSE Spanish exams for 10 years — home educated students, schooled students, and everyone in between. In this post I’m sharing my top tips on how to get the best grade possible: the specific things that actually make a difference, not generic study advice you could find anywhere.
Read More »10 Things You Can Do to Ace Your Spanish GCSE and iGCSE Exam
After-school programs offer a wealth of benefits that enhance and complement regular school education. By providing an enriching environment that extends beyond the traditional classroom, these programs support academic growth, social development, and personal well-being. Here’s how:
Read More »How effective are After-School Programmes at Complementing Regular School Education?
I had a student a couple of years back — bright, capable, doing everything “right” on paper. Flashcards every night, a revision timetable stuck to her wall, past papers ticked off one by one. She came to me convinced she was on for a 5, maybe a 6 if she was lucky. She got a 7. When I asked her what she thought had actually shifted, she didn’t say “I did more flashcards.” She said, “I stopped being scared to just talk.” That’s the bit that doesn’t fit neatly into a revision checklist, and it’s the bit that actually makes the difference between a 5 and a 7.
Read More »How does my child achieve a grade 7 in GCSE Spanish?
A few years ago I had a lovely home-ed family come to me halfway through Year 10, panicking slightly, because they’d registered their daughter for an exam centre that only offered AQA — and she’d already done a term and a half of work built around Edexcel’s topics. Nobody’s fault, really. Nobody had told them the exam boards weren’t interchangeable. We got her sorted (it meant a slightly rushed few weeks filling gaps in the AQA-specific topics), but I remember thinking: this is exactly the kind of thing that should be sorted out before you start, not three-quarters of the way through.
So let’s actually get into it — properly, not just “here are three logos and a summary.”
Read More »GCSE Spanish Exam Boards Explained: AQA vs Edexcel vs iGCSE
A-Level results are out this week. I didn’t take A-Levels, so don’t feel qualified to discuss the stress, anxiety but also overwhelming joy that getting your results must bring. (GCSE’s were bad enough for me). It has made me contemplate however the alternatives that are available for language learners. Read More »Alternatives to A-Levels for language learners