Mount St Mary’s off-site GCSE revision sessions 2024

As one element of the partnership between GSAL and Mount St Mary’s (MSM), MSM uses GSAL facilities for Saturday GCSE revision sessions. MSM teachers ran these sessions for humanities, maths, science and modern languages in April and June. The sessions are increasingly popular and from originally 25 students, now 50 students sign up to attend. The sessions offer intensive revision workshops and can make a significant difference to the students’ exam preparation.

Aims

To provide an enabling environment for year 11 students and their teachers from Mount St Mary's to hold an intensive subject-specific revision workshop off-site as part of their GCSE exam preparation. Some students do not have adequate space or a quiet environment at home to study effectively. Teachers give up their time on a Saturday to deliver the revision session. Transport from their school in the centre of Leeds is provided by GSAL and the students use the GSAL conference suite which can accommodate four groups of students of varying abilities, white screens, hot drinks and break-out space.  

Background

These revision sessions have been running for six years.

Resources

MSM teaching staff

GSAL transport

GSAL conference suite, which is comprised of 3 or 4 rooms (depending if the largest room is divided)

White screens and hot beverage machines

Impact

Quantitative:

This programme has been running for six years, and participation has increased because of the reputation for improving students’ grades. Originally, 25 students joined the study sessions; this year, approximately 50 students took part in the sessions. MSM teachers have informed GSAL that students who have attended a revision session achieve one grade higher than expected.

 

Qualitative:

MSM headteacher Mark Cooper spoke at the Teaching and Learning Leeds Conference 2024 held at GSAL, and he spoke about the value of the sessions for his students. Mark was speaking in the context of MSM’s purpose to put the students and their welfare at the heart of all their actions.

Pupil Involvement

Year 11; age 16. Mixed gender. All attend Mount St Mary's - state school in central Leeds.

Frequency

April and June 2024 for GCSE public examinations