9 Common Concerns about Signing up for The Exam Success Formula
Signing up for The Exam Success Formula is a big decision. It's not a small investment and there's the time commitment to consider as well. It's only natural for you to weigh up this decision carefully.
In order to help you make the right decision I've highlighted ten common concerns about signing up for the course in this blog post and given you my honest take on each of them.
If you're not familiar with The Exam Success Formula, it's my eight week course for students and parents that teaches the mindset, habits and study skills necessary for your child to meet their full academic potential. You can find out more about the course here.
Concern 1: It's expensive
When you're raising a family you have to think carefully about where the money goes. There certainly isn't enough to waste. I know that many people are concerned about the value they will get from The Exam Success Formula so that you can weigh it up against all the other things that are competing for your funds.
It's cheaper than tutoring
Good quality private tutoring costs upwards of £40 per hour. For this you can expect to get a qualified teacher who has classroom experience of teaching the subject at the level at which your child is studying. The last time I did private geography tutoring I charged £60 per hour. The Exam Success Formula works at at around £30.00 per week if you sign up at the early bird price, before 9pm on December 24th. If you wait until after Christmas the cost will be closer to £37.00 per week. As you can see both of these prices are less than having a good quality tutor for an hour per week.
You get great value for the cost per week
Each week both you and your child will get about two hours worth of direct benefit out of the course (this works out at four hours per family, which means for every hour of value you get you're spending between £7.50 and £9.25 per hour of teaching you receive. As you can see, this is much better value than private tutoring.
The course content is delivered in two ways:
- About an hour's worth of videos and the associated exercises emailed to you every Saturday morning at 7am
- A weekly coaching call live with me and the other participants. This is where you get to discuss your own individual issues and get the benefit of my advice and experience, as well as that of the other participants.
It's better value than tutoring
The course is designed to teach your child how to study so that they have more confidence in their abilities and they are more independently able to solve the problems that they have with their studies. If your child takes everything on board that I teach on the course they are far less likely to end up needing a private tutor.
Concern 2: It's time consuming
I know what it's like in this day an age, what with all the extracurricular commitments your child might have. Take into account rugby practice, music lessons, dance rehearsals and the demands of being the owner of an xbox as well as homework and revision, it's easy to think that your child, let alone you, doesn't have time for taking part in The Exam Success Formula.
I would beg to differ.
In week 2 of the course we look very carefully at time management and which activities your child is prioritising in their life. It's a chance to take a long, hard look at how they're spending their time and at whether the way they are spending their time a) truly reflects the direciton in which they want their life to go and b) whether they need to make some difficult choices about how they spend their time in order to maximise their grades.
It's very easy to let life drift by without really looking at your priorities and making sure you're working towards them. If you take The Exam Success Formula this won't accidentally happen to your child.
The other thing to consider is whether it's worth it to your child to really learn how to study so that they can take full control of their destiny, rather than feeling stressed, confused and over-whelmed as most students are in the run up to their exams. I think spending a couple of hours per week to make sure than they feel in control, confident and relaxed about their upcoming exams is well worth the time.
Concern 3: It's too late for my child
You might be thinking that starting a course like this in January 2018 is too late for your child, particularly if they're in year 11 or year 13 and there are some serious exams looming on the horizon.
If your child is in year 13 then I would say that it is too late for them to take part in this course. They really ought to know what they're doing with their studies by now and they just need to get their head down and get on with it. If you feel that they need some extra support you might want to check out my 1:1 coaching options, but I have very limited availability up until July 2018. It's worth asking, though!
If your child is in year 11 then I'd say that the term between January and Easter is your last-chance saloon to get them properly sorted out and ready to take their GCSE exams. During the course I won't just teach them how to revise, but we'll look at things like the mental blocks that are getting in the way of their studies, as well as their procrastination habits and the distractions that stop them from getting on so that they really can power through the last months of year 11 and get the best grades possible in their GCSEs.
Concern 4: It's too early for my child
If your child is in year 10 or year 12 you might be thinking that it's a term too early to take the course.
For year 12s I would definitely advise taking the course now – I wouldn't leave it until the autumn term of year 13. This is because by then your child will probably be thinking about university applications, which are very time consuming what with open days, writing the personal statement and possible interviews, and the work rate will also have ramped up in the second year of studying for A Levels.
For year 10s, while it's not essential, I think it's a great idea to have some familiarity with the material I teach in the course before they start year 11. That's because, a bit like with A levels, the intensity goes up a notch or two in year 11 and it will be easier to fit the course in now than it would be then. It will also enable your child to do their best in their year 10 exams and start year 11 on the right foot.
Concern 5: My child doesn't want to go to university, can the course still help them?
Yes, the course is for all students taking GCSE or A Level exams, whether they're aiming for higher education, an apprenticeship or simply a job. The course is designed to help your child to see their exams in the context of their longer-term aims and also to help them to get the best grades possible. It also teaches skills like time management, resourcefulness and problem solving that will be invaluable at either a higher level of study or in the workplace.
Concern 6: My child is doing really well anyway, do they need this course?
I can't say for sure with this one – it's definitely worth emailing me to explain more about your child's particular circumstances. However, I will say to you that I had students who were aiming for Oxbridge as well as students with less natural flair for academia on the last round of the course and they both got a huge amount out of taking part.
I think the value of the course for academic high-fliers is that it a) confirms that what they're doing already is the right way to do it and b) it gives them an edge on the people who haven't taken part and the tools to push their performance and their marks even higher.
Concern 7: My child is already over-whelmed by their studies
It's very common for students to come to me in a state of intense over-whelm and stress. My job is to give them structure, help them prioritise and given them the confidence that they have the tools and the ability to do what it takes. All students leave working with me with a greater sense of confidence in their own abilities, but also a tool kit that they can use time and time again, whenever they find things over-whelming.
If your child is over-whelmed they definitely need this course. It's not for nothing that one client called me their ‘saviour'!
Concern 8: I'd rather work with you one-to-one than as part of a group
This is understandable as you will think that less time will be spent on your individual needs, worries and concerns than if you were having one-to-one coaching. However, what I've found is that most of the families who took part in the first round of the course got more out of the group coaching aspect of the course than they would have done with one-to-one coaching because:
- They were able to hear the problems of the other parents and students and learn from them. Several people had ‘Aha' moments as a result of listening to other people's struggles and the suggestions that I gave to help them through.
- I don't currently offer concurrent one-to-one study skills coaching and parenting coaching. The real power of this course is that parents and students work through it together – rather than parents handing over the study skills coaching to me and then feeling out of the loop. On the course I'm the facilitator of the break throughs, but families experience them together.
Concern 9: We've tried everything as a family and it still doesn't work
It is quite common for parents to come to me who are tearing their hair out, thinking that they've tried everything to help their children, but nothing is working. One family who took part in the autumn 2017 run of The Exam Success Formula said that they had had such a difficult, frustrating time getting their older son through his A Levels, and ultimately it hadn't worked, that they were determined to try something new. They were incredibly grateful for the advice that they got through the course and learned new ways of approaching the support they offered to their children that gave them great hope for the future and a more positive way forward.
My message to you: Don't give up until you've got my help!
Over to you
I hope that this blog post has addressed your concerns about joining The Exam Success Formula. If it has, go over to the information page and register now. If you've still got questions, please email me on lucy@lifemoreextraordinary.com and I promise to get back to you. But don't wait too long as they early bird price finishes at 9pm on 24th December 2017. Registration closes at 9pm on 19th January 2018.