Bad predicted grades after one bad summer mock exam

Your child worked all year, then one summer exam went wrong, and now their predicted grades are at risk. It feels out of proportion, because it is. Most schools set predicted grades from the last full exam before the UCAS deadline, which means the September retake often counts for more than the whole year that came before it.

So the retake is not a punishment. It is a second chance to put a better number in front of the teacher who writes the prediction. One family at Winchester College is weighing predicted grades an LSE application rests on. Another opened an E on results morning. The question never changes: how do we make the most of this time?

One more thing worth knowing, because it takes some pressure off. Research by Dr Gill Wyness at the UCL Institute of Education found that only 16% of predicted grades are accurate, and 75% of students are predicted higher than they go on to achieve. Predictions move. Teachers change them when the evidence changes. Your child’s job this summer is to hand them better evidence.

Do you have enough time to improve before retakes?

Ten weeks sounds like plenty. But take out the family holiday, a week of work experience and the first days back at school, and the real number is closer to six. The maths changes how you plan.

They revised hard and still failed the paper

Most families start with more revision. We start with the failed paper, because one bad result almost always has one or two causes, not twenty. Until you know which, every hour of revision is a guess.

You have probably already run through the possibilities in your head. Maybe they never really changed how they revise since GCSE, still reading notes and hoping it sticks, when A Level questions test whether they can use the material, not just recall it. If that is it, the fix is a method change, not more hours.

Or maybe the knowledge is all there and the marks vanish to small, avoidable slips: a misread question, working left off the page, an answer that was right in their head and wrong on paper. That one feels the most unfair, and it is the most trainable. Checking routines, showing working, reading the question twice: they sound small, but together they are worth a grade.

The third possibility is a genuine gap, often a topic taught in a week your child was ill or away, that never got filled in. Each of these has a different fix, which is exactly why the first lesson of the summer is a diagnosis, not a lecture. Our guide to moving from a predicted B to an A covers what that first session looks like in detail.

The six-week plan that turns a retake around

Here is the shape we use with retake students every summer. It bends around holidays, but the order never changes, because each step feeds the next.

Two notes on the plan. First, rest is part of it, because a burnt out student underperforms in September no matter how much they covered in July. Second, the timed papers in week five matter more than any other single step, and our advice on revising for A Levels in the final month explains how to mark them the way an examiner would.

From an E to a B: the summer plan to get back on track

Theo finished Year 12 with Bs all year and an E on the summer maths paper, and nobody in the house could say what had happened. Theo is three students stitched into one, with names and details changed, but the timeline and the result below are real.

In the first lesson, his tutor went through the failed paper with him. The cause was not the year of maths. It was one statistics topic taught while Theo was off school, plus a run of small slips in the algebra he actually knew. So the plan wrote itself: three weeks on the missing topic, a checking routine drilled into every homework, then two timed papers in week five.

Theo took two weeks of holiday in the middle and lost nothing, because the plan was built around it. He walked into the September retake having seen the exam format four times that summer. The result was a B, his teacher moved the prediction back to a B with an A in reach, and his university shortlist survived.

“

Well, B is not right, but let’s talk through why.

”

Hugh, Physics tutor, Oxford

Said mid-lesson in July, as a student picked the wrong answer on a past paper question.

One line from a June call sums up the goal of the whole plan. A parent rang about her son’s September history resit, and Russell told her: “We don’t want him thinking about too many things. He needs to go in there confident, plan it out, do it.”

Will online lessons actually work for my child?

Every lesson happens live on a shared online board, so your child and the tutor work on the same paper at the same time. You get a report after each session, homework reminders by email, and a WhatsApp group where lessons are booked and work is shared. Nothing depends on your child remembering to pass a message on.

Inside a lesson

A real Greenhill Academics lesson, recorded live: the tutor works through an A Level probability question on the shared board, thinking on the page as they go.

Tutors who have fixed this exact problem before

Who runs the September plan

Hugh · Maths and Physics, Oxford

More than 20 of his recent students exceeded their predicted grades or secured places at leading universities.

Karol · Chemistry and Maths, Cambridge

Starts every student with a diagnostic assessment, so summer lessons target the real gaps rather than the whole year.

Charlotte · Biology, Chemistry and Physics, Oxford

Builds student confidence in exam technique through discussion-based learning, drawing on four years in the Oxbridge tutorial system.

The questions going through your head right now

If this helped, read these next

They did nothing at GCSE and still got a 9

Your child sailed through GCSE. They barely revised, walked out smiling, and the Grade 9 came anyway. Now it is October of Year 12, the marks have fallen off a cliff, and for the first time they are coming home saying they do not understand maths. Nobody in the house saw it coming, and that is the part that frightens you most.

Here is the first thing to hold on to. Your child has not become worse at maths over one summer. GCSE and A Level are two different exams that reward two different things, and nobody tells families that in September. One child at Winchester College coasted to a 9 and hit a wall in the first term. Another walked in expecting the same easy ride and got the first low mark of their life. The subject did not change. The bar did.

This is one of the most common ways the A Level jump catches a strong student out, and the pattern almost never varies. So before anyone panics, or books a pile of extra lessons, it helps to know exactly what shifted between the two exams.

Is it the maths, or the exam? One check tells you

GCSE maths rewards spotting the method. Questions point you at the tool, the algebra is short, and a strong student scores well by knowing which one to reach for and using it cleanly. A Level maths rewards fluency. The questions run several steps, the signposts disappear, and the algebra inside each step is heavier than anything GCSE asked for. So a Grade 9 student has gone from an exam that hands them the method to one that expects them to choose it, chain it, and run three or four steps without a slip.

That means the drop almost always comes from one of two places: the algebra underneath, or the exam on top. Do not guess which. Check it.

The ten minute check to run at home

Running it takes ten minutes. Sit your child down with one page of pure algebra and no calculator: indices, surds, algebraic fractions, rearranging formulae, expanding and factorising. Nothing from the A Level course itself, just the machinery underneath it. Then watch how they work rather than marking the score.

They understand it but make silly mistakes

Start here if the ten minute check came back slow or scrappy. This is the most common cause of the Grade 9 shock, and the most fixable one. Your child follows every new topic in class, then loses marks because the algebra inside each step costs them time and accuracy. The teacher says “understands the concepts, makes silly mistakes”, and you nod, because you have heard it before. That sentence is not a personality flaw. It is exactly what the maths gap looks like from the front of a classroom.

The fix is short, daily, and dull. Fifteen to twenty minutes of pure algebra practice most days for four to six weeks, aimed at the exact weak spots the check found. Not more A Level homework, and not past papers yet. The goal is to make the algebra second nature, so the new content has something solid to land on.

One thing to expect, because it trips families up. While the algebra is being rebuilt, the topic marks often stay flat for a couple of weeks, then jump. Families who give up in week three miss the jump. Our guide to the step up from GCSE to A Level maths shows what that first stretch looks like.

They get it in class but not in the exam

When the check came back quick and clean, the maths is not the problem. Your child knows it and still loses marks, which is the version parents find most maddening, because they can see the ability sitting right there. This is a real, teachable skill of its own, separate from the maths.

The usual causes are all fixable: diving into a question without choosing a method, showing too little working to bank the method marks, ignoring what the marks on offer are telling them about how much to write, and running out of time on the back half of the paper because the front half took too long. One parent put it exactly right about her son’s history exam: he “came out of the exam saying I really didn’t understand what they’re asking of me.” The knowledge was there. Reading the question was the gap.

The fix is focused exam practice, not more content. Work through past paper questions with the mark scheme open, and make the question “where do the marks come from?” not “what is the answer?”. Write the one line plan before touching the algebra. Time single questions before whole papers. Our advice on revising A Level maths past papers explains how to mark them the way an examiner would.

One low grade and their confidence is gone

Sometimes the honest finding is not the maths or the exam. It is confidence. A child who has only ever been top of the class can find the first low grade of their life genuinely shaking, and from there it tends to snowball: avoid the subject, slip a little further behind, prove the fear right, avoid it more. We had one parent describe her son after a run of top grades and one dip as “a little bit broken.” That is not drama. That is a bright child whose self image just took its first real knock.

The fix is not a pep talk, and it is not more pressure. It is making progress visible on paper and building in early wins, starting with problems just inside reach, so your child feels themselves getting better instead of being told they are. Push a little, but never so hard it stresses them. That balance is the whole job, and it is exactly what we match a tutor for.

“

If you mean business about doing well in your A Levels, you just have to spend the month before doing timed questions. That speed, it takes ages to develop.

”

Naomi, A Level tutor, Oxford

How to make the most of your time before the next exam

The best use of the time is not more waiting. Waiting has a price, and it builds up. Year 12 does not pause while you decide. Each week of new content lands on the same weak spot, the gap between your child and the class widens, and the fix takes longer the later you leave it. A problem worth six weeks in October is worth a whole term by February.

One move pays for itself straight away. After every practice paper, sort the lost marks into three piles: did not know it, knew it but slipped, ran out of time. Almost every student who gets it in class but not in the exam finds the first pile is tiny, which changes both the plan and how they feel about themselves in a single sitting. Our piece on what to do between GCSEs and A Levels covers how to get ahead of this before Year 12 even starts.

Will online lessons actually work for my child?

Every lesson happens live on a shared online board, so your child and the tutor work on the same page at the same time. The first lesson is a diagnosis, not a quick recap. The tutor runs the algebra check properly, watches how your child attacks a real exam question, and separates what they do not know from what they know but keep dropping. By the end you have a specific answer: this is the gap, this is the order we fix it in, this is what the next few weeks look like.

You do not have to referee any of it. You get a full written report after every session, homework reminders by email, and a WhatsApp group where lessons are booked and work is shared. Nothing depends on your child remembering to pass a message on.

Inside a lesson

A real Greenhill Academics lesson, recorded live: the tutor works through an A Level maths question on the shared board, thinking on the page as they go.

Who your child would work with

The maths tutors who find the gap

Hugh · Maths and Physics, Oxford

Reframes hard topics from several angles until they land. More than 20 of his recent students exceeded their predicted grades or won places at leading universities.

Holly · Mathematics, Oxford

Maps out exactly what a course covers so students can track progress and revisit weak spots, with a steady focus on building confidence alongside skill.

Murray · Maths, Chemistry and Physics, Oxford

A*A*A* at A Level in Maths, Chemistry and Physics, and clear about the exact habits that separate a top GCSE from a strong A Level result.

Answers to your questions

If this helped, read these next

So why is your child stuck at a 4 in IB Biology?

Start with what a 4 actually means. IB Biology is graded from 1 to 7, and a 4 sits in the middle. It is often where capable students land when they understand the topics but have not yet learned how to turn that knowledge into marks.

The final grade comes from Paper 1, Paper 2 and the Internal Assessment. A 4 usually means marks are being lost across more than one of them, often for the same reasons. Knowing the Biology is not the problem. Knowing exactly what each question requires is.

The marks that turn a 4 into a 6 or 7 sit in the harder parts of the papers, and the Paper 2 essays are the clearest place to see them. Each essay is marked in parts. Here is one way a 16-mark essay breaks down.

A real answer that scored 2 out of 6

That final six-mark question is often where a 4 turns into a 6 or 7. Rather than just telling you what went wrong, I’ll show you a real student answer. You don’t need to know any Biology to spot the mistake, just read the question.

Here is one of those questions: “Evaluate the use of stem cells in treating human disease.” A strong student answered it like this, and it scored two out of six.

Mariam is a made-up name, and this answer combines parts of several real scripts we’ve marked. An answer like this really does score two out of six. Everything she writes is correct, but she never does what the question asks. She describes instead of evaluating. Now look at the very first word of the question: Evaluate.

She writes everything she knows and still loses marks

One word at the start of the question decides everything. IB calls this the command word. Here, the command word is evaluate. That doesn’t mean “write everything you know.” It means weigh up both sides, then reach a judgement. Mariam wrote what she knew, so she missed the marks for discussing the downsides and the marks for a clear conclusion, even though everything she wrote was correct.

Here is where those six marks come from.

This is common, and it shows in the results. Whether your child sits IB Biology at Sevenoaks, at King’s College School Wimbledon, or at an international school overseas, the papers are marked to the same command terms. The global average IB score is just over 30 points, and fewer than 5% of students worldwide score 40 or more. Much of the gap between a 4 and a 7 in IB Biology comes down to this one habit: writing about the topic instead of answering the question.

From an IB Biology session

“

I used to rush a lot in exams. What helps me is going word by word, visualising what the question is actually asking. Look at the verb, the action word.

”

Kriszta, IB Biology tutor, Oxford

That verb, the action word, is the command term. Reading it properly is what turns a 4 into a 6 or 7.

The answer that scored 6 out of 6 simply answered the question

Answer B never even explains what a stem cell is. It has fewer facts than the answer that scored two out of six, yet it earns full marks because it answers the question. It covers the good, the downsides and reaches a clear judgement, backed up with a reason.

That is the skill. It’s not about knowing more Biology. It’s about answering the question the way the examiner expects, and that’s a skill most students can improve far more quickly than learning a whole new topic.

Inside a session

A real Greenhill Academics session, recorded live on the shared online board. Every IB Biology session runs the same way.

Could your child find their own lost marks tonight?

Find one of these six-mark answers that disappointed you both. Read the first word of the question, then ask your child to score their own answer against it, out loud, point by point.

Most students find two or three gaps, go quiet, then say something like “oh”. That “oh” is worth more than a term of revision, because for the first time they can see the difference between what they wrote and what was being marked.

It’s not what she knows, it’s how she answers

Read the first word of the question every time. Describe, explain, outline, evaluate and discuss all ask for different things. Read the command word first, then shape your answer around it. That’s how students turn their knowledge into marks.

On data questions, answer the data. Paper 1 and parts of Paper 2 reward what the graph or table actually shows, not the topic it comes from. A strong student often writes what they know instead of what the data says.

Mark answers against the official IB mark scheme, not just the teacher’s ticks. It feels strange at first, but it quickly becomes one of the most effective ways to improve. The same skill is needed for the Internal Assessment too, so it helps raise the overall grade, not just one paper.

Who your child would work with

Who sits with your child on Paper 2

Charlotte · Biology, Oxford (First Class, Balliol)

An Oxford tutor with a First in Biology, who teaches IB Biology and Chemistry, shaped by four years in the Oxbridge tutorial system. Her sessions run on discussion, which is exactly what an evaluate question tests.

Kriszta · Biology, Oxford (First Class)

An Oxford tutor with a First in Biology, top 10 in her cohort, now doing a PhD in cancer biology. She is sharp about what a sentence actually claims, which is what an answer is graded on.

Mirsab · Medicine, Cambridge

A Cambridge medic who builds simple tools for the abstract parts of the course. He is used to showing a student the exact difference between knowing a topic and answering the question set on it.

What IB parents want to know

Read these next on IB Biology

The effort is there, but the grades say otherwise

Your child is already putting in the effort. They revise in the evenings, work through past papers at weekends and make notes, but the marks are still not improving.

When you look through the paper, there may not be one obvious weak topic. The calculations may be correct, but marks are still lost on questions that ask your child to explain, describe or justify an answer.

Your child may say, “I knew that.”

They may be right. But in A Level Physics, knowing the answer is not enough. They also need to explain it clearly and include every point the examiner is looking for.

That is a different skill. If this is where the marks are being lost, more revision alone will not solve the problem.

Incomplete answers are costing them marks

A Level Physics is not only about getting the calculation right. Many questions ask students to explain, describe or justify their answer, and the marks depend on what they actually write down.

An examiner can only award marks for the points included in the answer. They cannot give credit for something the student understood but did not state clearly.

This is why a student can know the physics and still lose marks. If an important step, reason or conclusion is missing, the examiner cannot fill it in for them.

One of our physics tutors, Hugh, explained this to a student during a recent session:

“

Examiners cannot give you points for implied understanding, only for explicit understanding.

”

Hugh, A Level Physics tutor, Oxford

Hugh advised the student not to assume that any part of the answer was clear without saying it.

Students who understand a topic well often leave out important steps because the connection feels obvious to them. They write part of the explanation and assume the examiner will understand the rest.

A teacher in class may recognise what the student means and ask them to finish the point. An examiner can only mark what has been written.

This is not about intelligence or the school a student attends. It is a habit of writing incomplete answers, and it can be changed with practice.

Three questions from one session show the same problem

Here is what this looks like in practice. We will call the student Joel, a Year 12 student working through a past paper with Hugh during a Saturday session. Three questions from that session show the pattern clearly.

The same gap, heard out loud

More revision will not fix an incomplete answer

The revision was not wasted. It helped your child understand the physics.

But reading the notes again will not fix an incomplete written answer. The problem is not always missing knowledge. It may be that your child is leaving out an important step, reason or conclusion.

The fix is to practise writing full answers and checking that every part of the question has been answered.

Exam data backs this up. 44,957 students sat A Level Physics in summer 2025, and 31.9% of entries were awarded an A* or A. Two in three physics students finish below an A, and in our experience a good share of them understand more physics than their grade shows. For those students the writing is what lets them down, and writing can be taught. Our guide on how to get an A in A Level Physics covers what the top grades ask for across the whole course.

Try this at dinner tonight

You do not need to mark the answer or know any physics. Just listen.

The September mock sets the predicted grades

For many Year 13 students the September mock is not a practice run. It is the exam that sets the predicted grades that go on the UCAS form, which means the universities your child can apply to are being decided before autumn half term. That is true at fee paying schools like Charterhouse and Brighton College, and at state sixth forms, and parents are often told it late, or not at all.

The good news is that a writing habit changes much faster than a knowledge gap. There is no new content to learn. In weekly sessions over the summer, your child can practise turning half answers into full ones on real past paper questions, and that usually shows in the first mock. If your child also needs a higher grade in that mock, our piece on going from a predicted B to an A shows what that looks like from the first session on.

What the first session listens for

The first session is not a lecture and it is not a run through the topics. Your child and the tutor work through real exam questions on a shared online board, and the tutor listens the way you did at dinner. Where does the explanation skip a step? Which half of the two mark answer keeps going missing? Then they fix answers together, line by line, until your child can see what a full answer looks like and write one on their own.

The feedback is honest and direct. Hugh tells his students that if he is not criticising them, he is not doing his job. He means it kindly, because finding the problems is what the sessions are for. The same student heard this from him in the same session: “This is what I specialise in, exam technique. So I’ve got you.”

You get a full written report after every session, homework reminders by email, and a WhatsApp group where sessions are booked and work is shared, so you always know what each session covered and whether it is working.

Inside a session

A real Greenhill Academics session, recorded live on our online board: tutor and student thinking on the same page at the same time.

The tutors your child would work with

Who teaches exam writing, not just physics

Hugh · Maths and Physics, Oxford

He taught the session above and specialises in exam technique. More than 20 of his recent students exceeded their predicted grades or won places at leading universities.

Jasper · Maths, Physics and Computer Science, Cambridge

Took the top possible grade in Physics at St Paul’s School before Computer Science at Cambridge. Calm and structured, he breaks long answers into steps a student can repeat on their own.

Liza · Maths and Physics, Yale

Nearly a decade of tutoring across the UK and US, with years of experience supporting students with ADHD and learning differences. Builds answers from the logic up, so they hold under exam questioning.

What A Level Physics parents want to know

Questions about how the tutoring works

Worth reading next

The boys at a top London school had all A* predictions. LSE still said no

Several boys from the same year group at a top London private school applied to LSE, all predicted A* across their A Levels. They did not get offers. The difference was the personal statement.

It breaks the rule most families trust: good grades open doors. At the most competitive courses, nearly every applicant arrives with good grades. The grades get your child considered, but they do not separate them from the thousands of applicants with the same results. The statement is what separates them.

Every student is judged through the same UCAS form. That form has recently changed, but much of the advice online is still based on the old personal statement.

LSE has no interviews, so the personal statement is all they see

Oxford and Cambridge interview their applicants, but LSE does not. Their own guidance says it plainly: the School does not interview for places, so the statement is an applicant’s only opportunity to show they are a good fit, and the quality of the statement is very important in their selection.

Your child will not get the chance to explain themselves in person, recover from a weak sentence, or answer a follow up question. Whatever the statement says is all they will ever hear from your child. For a strong student, that can be an advantage. A personal statement can be reviewed, improved and rewritten until every sentence earns its place.

Your child may be following personal statement advice that is now outdated

For 2026 entry onwards, the single UCAS essay was replaced by three questions:

• Why do you want to study this course?
• How have your studies prepared you?
• What have you done outside education to prepare?

Students still have 4,000 characters in total, but their answer is now split across the three sections.

UCAS made the change partly because 83% of students said the old process was stressful, and many were not sure they had covered the right things. The three questions tell your child what to cover. What they do not do is make the answers good. An older sibling’s statement or a school template from a few years ago was written for a different format. Following it too closely can leave your child answering the wrong question.

One mistake has not changed: telling instead of showing. “I have always been passionate about economics” tells LSE very little. Discussing a specific book, entering an essay competition or researching a real question shows where that interest comes from.

One personal statement has to work for five different courses

Many families come to us stuck on the same problem. Your child applies to five courses, and they are rarely identical. One choice might be Economics with Economic History at LSE. Another might be pure Economics at UCL. One statement has to serve all of them, and it goes to every university unchanged.

The fix is to focus on what the courses have in common. The statement should be built around the main subject, with examples that are relevant across the whole application. Every course on the list shares a core subject, so the statement should be anchored in that subject, with evidence chosen so that each admissions reader finds something that fits their course. This needs to be decided before the writing begins. Otherwise, the statement can end up sounding too narrow for some courses and too general for all of them.

What the first session actually does

We will call the student Kerem, a Year 12 student applying for economics courses, including LSE. During a session in July, he and his consultant Kevin opened the three UCAS questions on the shared board and started with the first one.

Kerem already knew the first rule. He said it himself: he was not going to write that he loves economics, because you have to show it instead. So Kevin asked him a different question:

“

If you had to answer this question, why you want to study this course or field, what would you tell your parents or your friends?

”

Kevin, admissions consultant, Oxford

The answer came out naturally. Kerem talked about why supermarkets put sweets beside the tills, why buffets make some foods easier to reach than others, and how a currency crisis had affected a country his family knows well. These were real examples of his interest in economics, explained in his own words. Those answers became bullet points on the shared board, which would later become the first draft. Kevin told him not to worry about polished sentences yet. The priority was to find the strongest ideas and have a complete draft by the end of the summer.

Two other moments from the session are worth sharing. Kerem wanted to include an impressive event he had attended through his school’s Economics Society. They decided to leave it out because it read as privilege rather than evidence, and the official guidance warns that knowing clever people does not prove you are too. Removing ideas can feel like losing useful material. Then Kevin asked whether he was trying to cover too many topics at once. Kerem laughed and said one hundred percent. In reality, choosing fewer, stronger examples gives the statement more focus and allows the student to explain each one properly.

Kerem is real, and so is every detail above apart from his name.

Year 13 starts, and the personal statement is still not written

Kerem’s aim is to have a full draft ready by 1 September. Once Year 13 begins, schoolwork, predicted grades and university deadlines quickly take over.

A strong personal statement usually takes several hours of focused work and more than one draft. Starting over the summer gives the student time to develop their ideas, receive feedback and improve the writing properly.

For LSE, applications are submitted by the January 2027 deadline. Count backwards from there, through mock exams and predicted grades, and the summer is not early, it is exactly on time.

Students who wait until the first week of Year 13 often have to complete the whole process in a few days. That rush is where many of the most common personal statement mistakes begin.

From first ideas to final draft

The process starts with a profiling call. The consultant asks your child about their subject, interests and experiences to find the strongest ideas for the statement.

After the call, you receive a written report explaining what they already have, what is missing and what they should work on next.

The drafting then happens live on a shared online board. They begin with bullet points, organise the structure and then work on the sentences.

Your child writes the statement themselves. The consultant asks questions, challenges vague points and helps them choose examples that support the course application.

You receive a report after every session, so you can see what was covered, what still needs work and how the statement is progressing.

Inside a session

A real Greenhill Academics session on our shared online board. Statement sessions work the same way: the questions go up, and the ideas get written down together.

Meet our personal statement consultants

Consultants who have written winning applications themselves

Kevin · Economics and admissions, Oxford

The consultant in the session above. Holds an MSc in Financial Economics from Oxford with Distinction, and more than ten of his mentees have won places at universities including Oxford and LSE.

Kian · Classics, Oxford

Supports personal statements, entrance tests and interviews across the humanities. A writer himself, he is quick to spot the sentence in a draft that actually sounds like the student.

Naomi · Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Oxford

Read PPE at Oxford, where she won her college’s prize for the best overall student in Philosophy. She supports applicants aiming at politics and economics courses.

Questions parents ask about the personal statement

Worth reading next

They can do the homework, then leave the exam question blank

Your child reaches a question in a practice paper and says the sentence every parent has heard: “I can’t remember the formula.” The pen stops and the marks are lost before they have even tried the question.

The usual response is to revise the formulas again. You buy flashcards, print a formula sheet and ask them to learn the list. Then the same thing happens in the next paper.

That may be because the formula was never the main problem. Schoolwork often gives students more clues about which method to use. In an exam, they have to recognise the type of question, choose the right information and decide how to begin. Your child may know the Science but still be unable to find that first step. Until that is fixed, learning the formulas again may not change the result.

Is it the formula, or do they not know how to start?

There are two reasons your child may get stuck, and each needs a different solution. If they cannot remember the formula, they need a short, regular recall routine. If they remember the formula but do not know how to start, they need to learn how to recognise what the question is asking and choose the right method. Repeating flashcards will not fix that. Do not guess which problem they have. Test it.

Choose one question from a past paper, write the formula at the top of the page and give both to your child. Then watch how they approach the question rather than counting the score.

They know the topic but cannot start the question

Try this when your child knows the topic but cannot remember the formula.

A gravitational field exerts a force of 10 newtons on every kilogram. An object has a mass of 5 kilograms. What force acts on it?

Your child may not remember the formula, but the question still gives them two useful clues:

• newtons per kilogram
• kilograms

Say the units aloud: Newtons per kilogram multiplied by kilograms leaves newtons.

The units show that the numbers need to be multiplied: 10 × 5 = 50 newtons

Your child has found the answer without having to recall the formula first.

The same first step, taught in a real session

“

In some questions where you maybe don’t remember the formula, this is called dimensional analysis. It’s to check the units work.

”

Gonzalo, Science tutor, Oxford

Said mid-session during a real 13+ Science session, at the moment a formula went missing.

Hana used to stop as soon as she reached a question that needed a formula she could not remember. Instead of asking her to learn the whole formula list again, her tutor showed her how to use the units in the question to work out where to begin. Within a few weeks, she was attempting questions she would previously have skipped. Hana is not her real name, and her story is drawn from a few students we’ve taught, but she really did get stuck like this and the fix really worked.

Your child can build two smaller habits alongside this. For numerical questions, they should check whether the answer needs a unit, because missing units can cost easy marks. And at the end of every calculation, your child checks whether the number makes sense, because a tiny force on a heavy object should not produce a massive acceleration.

They can answer once the formula is in front of them

Start here if your child could answer the question once the formula was provided. That suggests they understand how to use it but are struggling to remember it.

The fix can be simple: spend five minutes on formula recall most days. Ask your child to say or write the formula from memory rather than reading it repeatedly.

Keep the sessions short and regular. A small routine they can maintain is more useful than a long session they quickly stop doing.

They should still practise using the units in the question. Knowing both methods gives them another way to begin if a formula is difficult to recall in the exam.

They have learnt the formulas but still skip unfamiliar questions

Your child can recite the formula list and still leave an unfamiliar question blank. That is the point at which parents realise that remembering the formula was only half the problem.

The paper expects the other half. Science is one of the three compulsory papers, and Common Entrance at 13+ is used by more than one hundred independent senior schools. The papers test how pupils use their knowledge as well as whether they can recall it, so a child who can work out how to start an unfamiliar question tends to do well. A child sitting St Paul’s at 13+, or the pre-tests used by Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Westminster, often meets the same kind of thinking.

Waiting has a price here, and it builds. Each paper your child sits with only one route into a question can teach them that Science questions are skippable. A question skipped in September is a topic avoided by January, and the fix takes longer the later it starts. Our tutors build the deeper skill by teaching problem solving rather than pattern spotting, one question type at a time.

Will tutoring help if they stop as soon as the formula is gone?

The units check may help with one type of question. Other questions need their own first step.

A tutor works through the exact papers your child is preparing for and watches what your child does when they first read a question. That shows whether the problem is recalling the formula or choosing the method, because the two can look identical at home. The tutor then teaches a repeatable first step for that question type, so your child always has somewhere to begin.

You receive a written report after every session, so you can see what the tutor found, what still needs work and how your child is progressing.

On the shared board

A real Greenhill Academics session, recorded live. The session shown is maths, and a 13+ Science session runs on the same shared board, with the tutor thinking on the page next to your child.

Who would teach your child this way

Matched to the schools you are aiming for

Gonzalo · Science, Oxford

Holds an Oxford First in Chemistry and is starting a Cambridge PhD. The featured line above came from one of his real sessions.

Murray · Chemistry, Physics and Maths, Oxford

Teaches Chemistry and Physics alongside Maths, from KS3 through A Level, with a Silver Cambridge Chemistry Award and a British Physics Olympiad Bronze behind him.

Charlotte · Biology, Chemistry and Physics, Oxford

Teaches all three sciences and builds confidence in reasoning through discussion-based learning, drawing on four years in the Oxbridge tutorial system.

Your questions about the 13+, answered

Two more reads for 13+ families

You go through the paper together and they knew every answer

You sit down with the practice paper and go through it together. They knew that one, and that one too. So why is the score still low? Before you book an 11 plus tutor, try something tonight that costs nothing.

The score makes it look like a knowledge problem, and at home you can prove that it is not. In a timed 11 plus paper, marks are often lost to habits under the clock rather than to gaps in what a child knows: extra working, refusing to skip, or misreading one word. You can see all three with your own eyes, tonight, without marking anything.

They do more work than the question needs and run out of time

We will call her Freya. The name is invented and her story blends a few children we have taught, but the habit is real.

On a word question, Freya worked out that the first letter of the answer had to be M. Only two of the options started with M. She then found the second letter, and at that point the answer was certain. There was nothing left to work out, but she kept solving to the end anyway. She had been doing the same thing throughout the paper: solving every question all the way to the end, even when she already had enough information to choose the answer. By the final questions, she was running out of time.

If your child does the same, knowing more is not necessarily the answer. They need to learn when they have enough information to stop and move on. This matters particularly in verbal reasoning, where eliminating the wrong options can often get your child to the answer more quickly.

They will not leave a hard question, even when it costs them

Somewhere in the section there will be a question your child finds difficult. Watch what they do with it. Some children skip it and come back at the end. Others stay on it for too long, then spend the rest of the paper worrying about the clock.

We will call the second student Oscar. Like Freya, his name is invented and his story blends the experiences of children we have taught. Oscar began keeping to roughly a question a minute after his tutor showed him that it was okay to skip a difficult question and come back to it later. His reasoning did not change that week. His decision about where to spend each minute did.

They answered a different question from the one on the page

When they get one wrong, ask them to read the question out loud. You may be surprised by what you hear.

We will call the third student Leela. Like Freya and Oscar, her name is invented and her story blends the experiences of children we have taught. She kept losing marks on shape questions, and the reason turned out to be one word. She was reading “rotating” when the question said “overlapping”, so she was answering a different question from the one on the page. Her tutor asked her to underline the instruction word before looking at the shapes. That gave her a simple check to slow down and make sure she was answering the question she had actually been asked.

A few lost marks can be the difference between a place and a near miss

The competition is tight at the most selective schools. St Olave’s Grammar School had 1,682 applications for 124 Year 7 places for 2026 entry, more than thirteen applications for every place. The picture is similar at Queen Elizabeth’s School in Barnet, where the school reported 3,294 boys sat its entrance exam in 2024, competing for 192 places.

That is why marks lost through rushing matter. Your child may already know how to answer the question, but unnecessary working, spending too long on one question or misreading one word can still cost them the mark.

The answer is not always more revision. They need to stop giving away marks on questions they can already do, and the three habits above are where those marks go.

From a real 11+ lesson

“

Please don’t worry about getting it wrong. Getting it wrong is good.

”

George, 11+ tutor

Said to a student mid-lesson.

That line matters because worry can sit behind all three habits. A child who is frightened of getting something wrong may rush, spend too long on a hard question or keep working even when they already have enough information to answer. If the rushing looks more like worry than habit, start with our guide to supporting a child through 11+ stress.

Will tutoring help if they already know the answers?

Yes, because the lessons are not about teaching more content. The tutor works on the exact papers your child is sitting and watches how they use the clock: where the extra working happens, which questions they cannot leave, and what they do with the instruction words. Each habit then gets its own fix, practised against the clock.

You receive a written report after every lesson, so you can see what was covered, what still needs work and how your child is progressing. Homework comes with email reminders, and lessons are booked in a WhatsApp group you can see.

Inside a lesson

This clip is from a real Greenhill Academics lesson, recorded live. The lesson shown is maths, and an 11+ lesson runs on the same shared board, with the tutor watching how your child works in real time.

The 11 plus tutors who work on these habits

The 11+ tutors who work on pace, not just content

Clemie · 11+ Maths and English, Cambridge

Clemie teaches both 11+ Maths and English, so she sees the same habits turn up in two very different papers. She is patient, calm and firm about slowing down, and children tend to relax with her quickly.

Martin · Admissions Maths, Cambridge

Martin prepares children for private school admissions maths at 7+, 11+ and 13+, alongside a Cambridge PhD in applied maths and theoretical physics.

Murray · Maths, Chemistry and Physics, Oxford

Murray prepares children for 11+ admissions maths and treats pace as a skill to be coached rather than a personality trait.

Questions parents ask

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