Anxious students are desperately trying to cram their brains with as many History dates and Trigonometry rules as possible now the dreaded A Levels and GCSEs are just a few weeks away, but are they actually taking anything in? Could some teenagers just be too nervous to learn anything while they are revising for important exams?

With studying moving into the 21st Century, internet aids are becoming popular for students. Best selling business author, Michael Heppell, has produced a series of audio downloads to help students in the lead up to their exams. They are available to download at www.examzone.co.uk. Find out from the man himself…

Michael Heppell joins us live online on Monday 30th April at 15.30to tell how students can succeed in the exam room.

H: Jane Constantinis, Host
M: Michael Heppell, author

H: Hello and welcome to the Education Show brought to you by Edexcel, I’m Jane Constantinis. Now it’s that time of year again, all over the country thousands of students are desperately trying to cram their brains full of facts and figures. GCSEs are just around the corner. The question is though, are they actually taking anything in? Some students are so anxious that the minute they walk into the exam room, they immediately forget everything they’ve studied, and their poor parents can only watch in horror. Is there anything they can do to help them? Well help might well be on hand this afternoon, because I’m joined in the studio by Michael Heppell, whose the bestselling author of this book, “How to be brilliant”. And he’s just produced a series of downloads, audio downloads, podcasts, aimed specifically at helping students during this very difficult exam time. Michael thanks very much for coming in to talk to us

M: Thank you very much for asking me

H: I remember it well, but just remind us all what a difficult time this is. What are students and their families going through?

M: Somebody once said to me that exams can be seen as an acronym for Exaggerated Anxiety and Mental Stress, and when you think about it like that, that’s the case. All of that work that they’ve been in the last couple of years they’re going to be tested in a period of a couple of hours. It’s very stressful

H: And a lot of students don’t fulfil their potential, they don’t do as well as they could because of this

M: That’s one of the biggest challenges, and isn’t it a shame that we don’t give young people an opportunity to excel? I don’t know how many times have you heard when people walk out of the exam hall and they suddenly say well I knew that, I really did know that answer, I just couldn’t get it while I was in the room. We wanted to address that and give people the opportunity to really do well

H: Well of course this is an interactive show so we want your questions to Michael. Just type it in the box below the screen with your name of course and send it to us and we’ll get through as many as we can in the show. In a moment we’re also going to listen to a clip from one of your podcasts, but just tell me how you came up with the idea?

M: Well we’ve been teaching exam technique in schools for about 10 years now but the challenge of that of course is you can only communicate with maybe 100 or 200 at a time. We wanted to create something that was going to have a massive appeal, so we teamed up with Edexcel and decided that their exam zone section was going to be the best place to put these new ideas, and initially it was going to be done as a set of, perhaps videos or we wanted to put some downloadable books, but then we thought wait a minute, what do young people do these days? They listen to MP3s. We are in the day of the download instant, so you can do it straight away. That’s what young people want. We’ve recorded 16. They’re all going online this week, and young people will be able to listen to them and get results very quickly

H: Ok well shall we have a listen o a clip from one of them?

M: Yes sure
Welcome to the Edexcel Exam Success Download Centre. Here you will find dozens of tips to help you pass your exams with flying colours. Whether you’re the type of person who just needs a few extra marks, or if you’re the type who’s worried to death about the exams you have to take, there are plenty of helpful hints and tips just for you. Plus you’re going to find ideas to help you remove stress and stay relaxed. And just when you need them, you can download confidence-building techniques and even some last minute stress busters and confidence builders which are going to help you in every part of the exam process

H: Just talk me through what is in the 16 podcasts

M: Ok well as you’ve heard some of the ideas are about preparing before exams, some of the ideas are about to help you during the exam, literally whilst you’re there to get those answers that you’ve maybe already got trapped somewhere else in your brain. There’s other things to help you manage stress, and there’s a lot in there about building confidence, plus we’ve got some health tips, we’ve got some ideas about how to get a nice balance in your life during this time, and there’s some things to help you just to communicate a little bit better

H: That all sounds like it’s not just applicable to students doing exams actually, they sound like life lessons

M: They are and it’s interesting that when we originally sent out the first set of CDs for people to listen to they said listen, listen to these, they’re going to go online soon, what do you think? The parents of the children who were listening said these are great for me, I’ve got an interview coming up, can I use it for that? And I’m going to be doing a new project and I have to do some presentations and we’ve got tools and techniques that help you to stay very calm during those stressful times as well

H: We all have those hurdles all through our lives and it seems that children are starting ever younger to be tested

M: Of course

H: Is it appropriate for them too?

M; Very much so, I mean one of the things that we did, we made it funky, we made it upbeat, it’s entertaining, there’s funny stories in there. Each one only lasts between 3-6 minutes, so it isn’t really very heavy, so maybe even an 11 year old going to a new school or taking an exam to go to a new school, they could use that during the different tests that they get at different times, that’s fine. But the real big moments are of course during GCSEs and A Levels; they’re the big ones and of course as you’re coming to the end of a degree course as well

H: Yes. Oh I remember that well. Shall we take a question?

M: Of course

H: Chloe wants to know, she’s in the middle of revising for her A Levels. “I just don’t know where to start. Where can I go for extra support?”

M: Ok well there’s lots of places to go. It’s interesting some research recently said that more young people would go to the Internet than ask their teachers or their parents in fact significantly more would go to the Internet rather than ask their parents. So if you’re going to go to the Internet, make sure that you go to a site that’s going to give you good advice. Obviously I want to tell you about the examzone.co.uk because on there you’ve got lots of different techniques, not just the downloads but also there’s things from the examiners, what are they looking for. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could sit down with an examiner and say tell me what is it that you want to know about? Also there’s some tools and techniques to help yourself with the revision and also some things to get organised. When is your exam going to come up, let’s get a plan and it sounds awful to have to say it but you must plan, because if you know if you fail to plan then you’re planning to fail

H: Good advice for Chloe there, and James wants to know – ah this is a parent. “My son is getting up at the crack of dawn and not going to bed until past midnight to revise. I’m obviously worried about him. What can I do?”

M: Well I think one of the most important things is they must sleep, young people must sleep. They think they can go on and on and on and you know one of the things about sleep deprivation is that you can have – you get maybe 25% sleep deprivation you’re going to have some of the same challenges as going to senile dementia for older people. So it’s really important, now do you want to sit an exam as a 70 year old? No you want to sit an exam as a 17 year old with that same sharp brain, so learning how to sleep is very important. So we put a section in on sleep. So you can download some tools and techniques to help you to sleep but also something to listen to just as you’re going off to sleep to get a more deep, restful sleep so you wake up the next morning with some energy

H: Because I think a lot of people think the thing to do is to cram until – I’ve done this myself, still with your books. Is that bad?

M: Well some people find it useful for them and if it works for you do it, that’s the thing, but if it’s kind of because I haven’t done enough work I’m going to cram at the last minute maybe not. I would rather somebody would spend the last 5 minutes just getting themselves feeling confident, getting themselves into a place maybe doing some breathing you know? Nice deep breath in, hold it you know and then a breath out. And then another nice deep breath in, and then when you do that, you immediately start to feel more calm. Don’t hang around with the people that are negative outside of an exam, you know? If you were waiting to get inside a plane would you hang around with people who were saying, “it’s going to crash, it’s going to crash”? No you wouldn’t, you’d say listen you stay over there, I’m going to stay over here, so perhaps some advice there would be to say surround yourself with positive people, learn how to breath properly and that will really help. Just some simple things

H: Great. Karen wants to know “over the Easter holidays I spent 6 hours a day revising for my GCSEs but when I came back to school” – this is interesting, everyone was taking the mickey out of her for revising. How can I revise but not be teased?

M: Ok, Karen, listen to me. This is a big one and there are so many people who get this. You just need to just imagine that you’ve got maybe a suit of armour or something on and let those, that negativity from other people just bounce off. You’re doing the right thing but it’s all about your levels of confidence. Now here’s the key. We’ve all been in situations when it’s been very easy to take the mickey out of somebody. Usually it’s because you wished you’d had something like that yourself, and what they’re really saying so often is you’ve done something that I haven’t, what’s my coping mechanism going to be? So I take the mickey out of that person. It’s for you Karen, that’s the key thing, you’re doing the exam for you and you’re the person that needs to get the results. Trust me in August when you get the envelope and you’ve done really really well, people won’t be taking the mickey then

H: In fact when you said confidence building, I was immediately made to think about – this very weekend actually – spending time with my Goddaughter whose having a little bit of a tough time, she’s 11, and yet she’s just passed an exam for her next school and it has boosted her beyond all recognition. The two things are very very closely connected at that age aren’t they?

M: Well confidence is huge not just at that age but right the way through our lives. The number one thing that parents believe their children lack is confidence. The number one thing that parents believe they lack for themselves is confidence. So confidence is really key. So what we decided to do with the downloads is to have several sections on confidence so there’s all sorts of areas where you can build confidence in different ways because we’re all unique we’re quite different, and what may work for you may not work for somebody else, but if we can get people to just increase their confidence levels by 50% what an amazing achievement that is. By 10% you get more but we go for it – How to be Brilliant, so let’s be brilliant with this

H: How – what can a parent do in a nutshell to help boost their child’s confidence?

M: Ok number one, total unconditional support. There’s a big challenge that parents – it’s not like they want to do the exam for them, because they don’t want to do an exam, but the other challenge is that the majority of parents don’t believe that they can help with the technical side of things, so what do they do? So they kind of go are you revising, are you revising? They think they’re helping – are you revising, are you revising when actually most young people they have got a plan, they don’t need to be nagged they need to be supported. So it’s kind of asking some better questions. But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say here’s a website, I’d like you to spend some time on the internet, rather than get off the internet, spend some time on it. I want you to spend some more time on your MP3 player, now have a little listen to this. Maybe listen to the relaxation sessions together and both do the visualisations together, that might be a nice thing to do

H: Great. Well we’re halfway through the show now, really interesting stuff I do hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. Do keep the questions coming in, remember just type them in the box below the screen and send them in with your name. Just – can I just take you back to that breathing thing that you were showing me earlier – it’s a really simple thing and I even, I know a little bit about that from even my own work, just before we go live on air, a little bit of concentration - what should we do, just show me again?

M: Well the key thing is have a Buddha tummy you know get a big tummy there, don’t try and breathe up there, breath from there and really really suck that air in you know and fill up, and then hold it for a while just hold it because keep going it’s kind of – but if you go from there it’s much easier to hold it, and then just a little short count, maybe up to 5 or 6 and then out, and do 5 of those and what a different it makes. But notice how I sit, I’m sitting up straight

H: Yes you’re making me do that now

M: And the key thing is physiology is so important. Take it how you walk you know, if you go into an exam like that, then what’s going to happen is your brain’s going to say I’m not confident, I don’t know this stuff. If you walk in with almost a bit of a strut, not arrogance but a kind of – how would a person who knows all the answers walk into there? How would a person who has total confidence walk in there? Do that with your physiology and your brain goes ahh. I know more, I can do more

H: Fantastic thanks for that. Patricia wants to know “my daughter is so on edge about her up and coming exams I can’t see how she’s able to take her revision in properly?”

M: Again Patricia that’s a classic thing you know, people really are on edge at this particular time. Deep relaxation is probably one of the best tools you know, to really learn how to relax properly, and we’re not talking about sitting down and watching a bit of TV. Some people watch Eastenders for relaxation – what’s that about? It might be good fun to watch Eastenders but it’s not deep relaxation. So we’ve put 3 relaxation sessions, one’s a very very fast stress buster, lasts for 4 or 5 minutes? Could you listen to a download for 4 or 5 minutes? Yes of course you can, you could do it on the bus on the way to school, outside of the exam hall you could listen to that. Other one slightly longer, more of a deeper relaxation and then one that’s going to help you to relax and go into sleep. So I would think that deep relaxation is one of the very very best things. Could you find 5 minutes a day to do that? Yes if you want to, if you want to make it a must

H: Well especially if it’s going actually enable you to absorb the information you’re trying to take in, otherwise it’s a waste – you’re wasting all that time

M: Definitely. And there’s another little thing you can do when you’re relaxed as well, if you get to a nice relaxed state, and then just mentally rehearse, see yourself doing really well, see your brain as a sponge taking in all that information, it’s amazing how much more when you do open your eyes and there’s your books in front of you, how much more you can take in, how much faster you can learn

H: Interesting. And in fact you’ve just answered Peter’s question because he was saying that his son gets so worked up in exam season where he can’t eat before exams he’s so nervous, how to calm him down -

M: I think that’s the other thing but the other thing of course, not eating, that’s a challenge, but not drinking, that’s a bigger challenge so drink lots and lots of water. We know this, we hear about this but really kind of having – my exam water bottle, litre and a half a day, and just making sure you get with that stay hydrated, because you know a 10% drop in hydration can equal about a 30-40% decrease in your brain’s effectiveness

H: Really? And that brings us on to nutrition in fact you’ve got something on that too have you?

M: We do and it’s interesting, you know saying oh you must do this and you must do that and you must eat this and you must eat that – I am 16 years old and I’m cramming for my exams, I am in snack culture. You know I’ll just get what I can when I can

H: Yes

M: So we’ve been very realistic about that and we’ve said if you’re going to do certain things with yourself, here’s some easy things to do, and you know when I was 16 I wanted some easy solutions. You don’t want it all to be hard work so we’ve got some very simple things that you can do

H: Great thank you. And in fact this might help Mary because she says she’s got really bad problems with concentrating for more than 30 minutes at a time

M: Yes

H: She wants to know is eating fish good for concentration?

M; I don’t know so much about eating fish although it may be very good, it may be very tasty

H: You do hear that don’t you

M: Yes but I think the key thing there is she’s studied her concentration timespan, it’s 30 minutes. Fine, she knows that, so when she revises, revise for 30 minutes, take a break for 10 or 15. Go back, a quick 5 minute review of what you’ve done and then do another 25 minutes. So rather than try to fit in 5 hours worth – half an hour little break, half an hour little break – she’ll study less and learn more which will make it quite exciting

H: We’ve all done that haven’t we, we’ve all worked late into the night when we’re very very tired and you’re aware that you’re not being very productive, but you feel you’ve got to somehow notch up the hours. If you went to bed and you got up in the morning you’d do it in a quarter of the time wouldn’t you?

M: It depends if you’re an evening person or a morning person -

H: I’m a morning person

M: But again we all know those things, and what we wanted to do with the program and with Exam Zone and with the downloads, is to say you already know a lot of this stuff, let’s do 16 downloads that are perhaps the things you don’t know. You know most people discover about how the brain works in the last few years, than in the whole of history before that, and we take a lot of that latest thinking about how a brain actually processes information and we teach it. And the interesting thing, students can listen to this, they’ll know more about how their brain works than their teachers at the end of it

H: It’s interesting that you’re starting with this is the kind of person you are

M: Yes

H: And you know that, this is what you can do to help yourself

M: Definitely

H: Rather than trying to change

M: Yes because you can’t say that this is the perfect way to take an exam, it doesn’t exist. That one might be right for you, but completely different for somebody else. Some people sail through exams, you know the ones, oh I hardly did any work

H: They’re lying

M: And they get the 12 A*s, other people it’s a scrap, but if we can just help everybody just to go from there up to there, isn’t that a wonderful thing to do

H: Yes. Well let’s hope you can help Louise, because her daughter is about to start her third year finals at Bristol University, every evening she’s ringing up crying saying she can’t cope with the stress of it all and is close to quitting

M; Yes

H: What can Louise do to help her?

M: Ok well my son’s just finishing off his last year at university, at this exact time, and although he isn’t ringing up crying, he’s definitely ringing up with some challenges, and one of the things that you can do as a parent of course is to be supporting. Send them a package, send them some nice things, you know let them know that you’re really thinking about them. Say listen it is a tough time, it is a challenge, maybe get some motivational stories about times when people thought it was tough and how they kept going. Get them to do some futuring, think about how it’s going to look in three month’s time when it’s all done, and you’re having a great summer and you managed to get through that. And get them to be really proud, think about past achievements when she did really really well, you know that little cup that she won when she was 12 years old or something, pop it in the post and send it through and it’s amazing how you can lift people with just little things like that

H: And put it into perspective is always important isn’t it?

M: Of course

H: You can get so bogged down in that world can’t you?

M: Yes

H: You can’t see beyond it. Now Dave says he finds the best way to revise for his exams is by listening to pre-recorded notes on his MP3 player

M: Great

H: “Your downloadable help sounds great, sign me up – how can I get them?” How can people get them?

M: Well the easiest way to do it is to go to examzone.co.uk, just go in there, there’s lots of information, you just click on – there’s a little picture of an MP3 player and it says, it’s got the exam success downloads in there. During this week they’re all going to get posted up there, there’s a sample there now for you to listen to, you can find out where the site is, and then I would just say almost think which one’s going to be best for me, you know test out, think I like that one, oh I like that one – maybe two or three, test those out first, they’ll be there now forever, that’s the great thing you know it’s a permanent feature and we’re going to just add more and more in the coming years but right now think ok I’ll have that one, I think I’ll have a go with that one, I probably need some help in that area, do two or three, download them to your computer, put them onto your MP3 player if you don’t have an MP3 player listen to them online

H: Yes

M: You don’t have to, you can play things online.

H: And do people need to listen to them in any sort of order -

M: No

H: Or as you say you can just pick randomly whatever –

M; And what we would advise you maybe listen to each one two or three times to get the general ideas. There’s a lot of information in a short period of time, the relaxation techniques – listen to them every single day

H: And of course as we were saying earlier, not just for people revising for specific exams, but people you know generally facing challenges at work or -

M: Lots of things

H: Or whatever it is

M: There’s some really general good personal development techniques in there, and if you’re doing – imagine doing it as a family, if you’re doing some techniques or your kids are, or if you are and you get your parents to, it’s a nice thing to do to swap information like that

H: Fantastic, thank you. Well it’s been really really interesting and -

M: Thank you very much

H: And I’m sure you’re going to be a great help to a lot of people who are really suffering. I still have anxiety dreams about my finals, three weeks to go and I haven’t’ read any of my set text – I clearly needed some of your podcasts! So thank you for joining us and if you’d like any more information or if you’d like to download the podcast they’ll be available shortly, go to www.examzone.co.uk and I’ll see you again very soon, bye bye for now

M: Thank you very much

H: Thank you very much

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