Dreaming Spires Revision

Many of us in the homeschooling community in the UK have been on tenterhooks after learning that the Government had ruled out iGCSEs in English Language as an accepted qualification to study free at FE colleges. This meant that homeschooled students in the near future were going to have to either do one of three things: find an exam centre that would not only offer GCSE exams to private candidates, but also provide a way for them to satisfy the moderated speaking/listening portion of English exams; or take GCSE English in the FE college at post-16; or take the iGCSE as per usual, but hope that it wasn't further eroded as a qualification at, say, university. So, I can't express my appreciation enough to our hard-working colleagues (and presumably, plenty of independent schools who also take iGCSEs) who have finally broken through the stalemate and received word that the Government has u-turned on this. Here is an extract from the ruling: We have decided, foll...

In the past, Dreaming Spires Revision has been run as a crammer course just before the exam season -- a 10-day, one-hour-a-day intensive blast of all the tips and tricks that I, as an experienced examiner, can throw at a student. The success rate of As and A*s for Dreaming Spires students have been more than 90%, so I'm convinced that the formula and format work. However, due to popular demand, Dreaming Spires Revision will be offered as a one-hour weekly online course instead of a crammer course starting from this September. All the same tips and tricks, but at a more leisurely pace! The day and time is to be determined, but likely to be Friday or Wednesday morning. Classes need a minimum of 5, but not more than 15, and enrollment works on a first come-first served basis. Cost is £75 per person, with a 50% discount for siblings. Referrals also receive discounts. Please contact me at dreamingspiresrevision@gmail.com ASAP to reserve your space. Important!  Dreaming Spir...

This is my first foray into running Dreaming Spires as a short course -- that is, over a 2-day tutorial rather than the usual 10 days. My clever attempt to show Dreaming Spires as a "short" course Needs must when students are otherwise booked up and unable to fit the usual schedule, and that, of course, is the beauty of dealing with an individual tutor rather than an institution that's not flexible. If you were hoping to sign up for an iGCSE tutorial but just couldn't fit it in, then why not either jump on tomorrow's two-day version, or talk to me about setting up the short version for yourself and some friends?

All Dreaming Spires Revision courses have two parts to them.   One part is available 24/7. This includes forums (like email), presentation files which I upload after class, and resource materials which are helpful to have for revision.                The other part of the course is the live portion, when I give talks via my computer, using slides for illustrative purposes, all the while having students type their text-based chat in an additional window on screen.  Once the ten days’ live class portion of the course finishes, your child should set aside time to sit the two papers as though they were the real exams, and then send them to me.  I will mark them and return them. Should your child wish to have any additional tuition beyond the revision course itself, I also offer one-on-one tuition on-line via this same delivery system, or by Skype.  You can make enquiries about schedules and costs for this at any time...

Tutor and Students Come Together at Canterbury People sometimes say they prefer face-to-face tutorials because on-line classes can be so impersonal, but I’ve found it to be a different story when I’ve been teaching on-line tutorials for Dreaming Spires. For one thing, we are able to chat throughout the weeks of the course, both during the hourly class time, and also through the forums as and when we like. This translates into considerably more chat-time than in a weekly face-to-face meeting. I think the relationship on-line is more informal, too.  You can, for example, use the forums to have chats about your life or your other courses and not be worried you’re wasting someone’s time — they only respond if they choose to, and when it's a suitable time for them. Best of all, I had an opportunity this past summer to meet with one of my students and his family, even though he was from India. He had come over to visit family and take his exams, and we were able to rendezvous ...

It’s a fact of life: examiners for your precious and important work are expected to mark about 350 papers over the course of about a month. The exam boards estimate that this will take about 87 hours (4 papers per hour); however, examiners are paid by the paper, so it’s in their best interest to mark faster. Five-Minute Treatment Think about it: the exam that you sweated over, stressed about, and prepared for is passing through an examiner’s hands in 15 minutes.  For the reading paper, that’s 3 questions’ worth of work, giving the examiner a total of 5 minutes’ concentrated effort per answer. But wait: that’s not all! Starting this year, the English language papers are going to be marked in on-line form, rather than in paper form. Personally, I dread to think of this, because studies have shown that people are able to read much less carefully when something is on-line than when it’s in paper form (see the book called  The Shallows  by Nicholas Carr about this...

When I was marking papers for an exam board last year, I kept thinking to myself that so many mistakes were being made that weren’t necessary. I started making notes in my head about how I would teach my own child to tackle the iGCSE English paper if she were going to take it this year. These notes have now turned into a ten-session revision course for CIE iGCSE English exams. I have called in Dreaming Spires Revision because I live near Oxford, and who wouldn’t want to dream of getting a university place at such a good university?!! Dreaming Spires Revision courses are delivered on-line so that anyone, anywhere can take advantage of my experience. This keeps costs low for the student, and it’s also convenient. There are, of course, other companies and schools who do revision classes, but I think I have unique offerings for you that are unavailable elsewhere. For example, I’m not a mega-crammer for hundreds of students; I take only 20 at a time. I’m not plonking you down...