Week 6 of 6 — you’ve got this
This is it.
Exams start this week, which means this is the last Home Straight email. You've done the work. Now it's time to trust it.
This week looks a little different. There are no big revision tasks below - at this stage, cramming new content isn't the goal. Instead, we've got some straightforward advice on how to handle the days and evenings around your exams, because how you prepare in the final hours matters just as much as everything you've done over the past six weeks.
Good luck - though after all of this, luck is only a tiny part of it.
For parents and carers: your job this week is simple: keep things calm, make sure they eat, and tell them you're proud of them regardless of what happens in that room. They'll remember that.
This week’s focus
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This week's focus is Narrative Writing — Language Paper 1, Section B.
You've already developed your 'core idea'. This week is about refining it and knowing it well enough to write it confidently under exam conditions.
✅ Practise writing your narrative from memory in 45 minutes — without looking at your notes. Aim for 2–2.5 pages. Use your five-stage framework: opening / development / problem / reaction / reflection. The marks are in the detail: engaging characters, vivid description, 'holding the moment', and a thoughtful ending.
✅ Compare your practice version with your original. What did you miss? What needs more work? That's your final checklist.
✅ Adapt — practise adjusting your narrative to fit a range of Section B titles - download these examples. Your central 'problem' stays the same; small tweaks to framing and detail help you fit the story to whatever prompt comes up on the day.
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✅ Same focus as last week — Pinpoint booklets and past papers. You know the drill by now. Consistency wins.
✅ If there are questions you've been getting wrong repeatedly, this is the week to resolve them. Use SPARX, MathsGenie, or a quick word with your teacher before the exam.
✅ Multi-mark questions: keep practising the structure, keep showing your working, keep refusing to leave blanks. Those habits need to be automatic by the time you sit down in the exam room.
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🔬 Science — Week 6
This week's focus is Biology and Chemistry.
Biology Focus: Communicable Disease
✅ Core Knowledge Revise: Relearn all B3 Infection and Response questions from your Biology Paper 1 Core Knowledge Book
✅ Revision Videos: — pause often and build mind maps from memory.
✅ Complete questions on these topics on SPARX
⚠️ The first Biology exam is 12 May. As well as this week's focus, make sure you know the entire Biology Paper 1 Core Knowledge Booklet off by heart.
Chemistry Focus: Endothermic and Exothermic Reactions
✅ Core Knowledge Revisit: Revisit all C1 Atomic Structure questions from your Chemistry Paper 1 Core Knowledge Book
✅ Core Knowledge Revise: Relearn all C5 Energy Changes questions from your Chemistry Paper 1 Core Knowledge Book
✅ Revision Videos:
✅ Complete questions on these topics on SPARX
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✅ Make sure you've completed as much of the Languagenut vocabulary revision as possible. This week, focus on the topics you're least confident on — jobs, environment, health, and any others where gaps remain.
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This week's focus is World War One.
✅ Step One: Use your Revision Guide to make notes on areas of weakness, organising your revision by theme: causes of the war, the battles and reasons for stalemate, and reasons for the armistice. Pay particular attention to: the Moroccan and Bosnian Crisis, the war at sea, Gallipoli, and the Ludendorff Offensive.
✅ Step Two: Use the chart of past questions at the front of your revision guide to create bullet point plans for your answers.
✅ Step Three: Watch the exam technique videos on your Teams page for this paper.
❓Test Me Tips — for parents and carers: Use pages 10–15 of the Test Me booklet to quiz your child — read the questions, listen for the answers.
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This week you're doing a Paper 1 practice paper. ⚠️ This exam is Wednesday 13 May 9am.
✅ Answer questions 1, 2, 3 and 4 from this practice paper— covering The challenge of natural hazards, The living world (ecosystems), Coastal landscapes in the UK and River landscapes in the UK. Allow yourself 90 minutes and work under exam conditions: notes away, timer on. If you're stuck on a question, your exercise book and knowledge organiser can help.
✅ Once you've finished, mark your paper using this mark scheme and highlight anything you got wrong or missed, and use this for revision.
Technique of the week
🌙 The night before and the morning of
There's a right and a wrong way to spend the hours around an exam. Here's what actually helps:
The night before:
✅ Do a light review - glance over key notes, flash cards, a summary sheet. Thirty minutes maximum. This is a confidence check, not a cramming session.
✅ Sort everything you need: clear water bottle, pens, pencil, ruler, calculator if required. Do it the night before so the morning isn't chaotic.
✅ Get to bed at a sensible time. A tired brain retrieves information more slowly, makes more errors, and struggles to manage stress. Sleep is not optional revision time.
❌ Don't start a new topic the night before. You won't learn it properly, and the anxiety it creates isn't worth it.
The morning of:
✅ Come to the exam breakfast in school.
✅ Arrive in good time. Rushing to an exam raises your stress levels before you've even sat down.
✅ If you feel nervous: that's adrenaline, and adrenaline is useful. Take a few slow breaths, remind yourself what you know, and go in.
Tip for parents: the single most useful thing you can do on exam morning is make sure they leave the house on time and with food inside them. Everything else can wait.
That's a wrap on The Home Straight. Six weeks, six emails. We hope it helped.
Now go show them what you know. We're all rooting for you.
